What It Means To Be Human
by Our Brightest Stars
Summary: "I'm never going to stop running from you unless one of two things occur: the world ends or I die. No exceptions." He pressed his lips into a grim line, anger blazing in his eyes, although, outwardly, he was calm. "And I'll never stop chasing you. No matter where you run, no matter where you hide, I will find you. I refuse to let anyone else die under my watch, least of all you."
1. Set My World Into Motion

_If a fish swam out of the ocean, grew legs, and started walking;  
And the apes climbed down from the trees, grew tall, and started talking;  
And the stars fell out of the sky and my tears rolled into ocean;  
Now I'm looking for the reason why you would set my world into motion._

-Black &amp; Gold, Ellie Goulding (2010).

* * *

She didn't notice anything amiss at first. Some of the blame could be placed upon the fact that she was in a foreign country, mostly blind without her thickset glasses, and, like the majority of the human race, was too absorbed with her own life, needs, and goals. A large portion of the remainder could be rested on the fact that the changes were so small, it would be a wonder that anyone had noticed at all if they were just another, mostly blind, human foreigner.

But possibly, the biggest and most obvious reason of all that she didn't notice, was because it happened when she was sleeping...And when she woke up, she was in a pasture that looked nearly identical to the one she had been in previously. The only difference was that the sheep, which had originally been surrounding her and sniffing her curiously, were on the opposite side of the fenced pasture and that she couldn't find her purse anywhere.

The woman adjusted her photochromic prescription lens, blinking owlishly around her in perplexed confusion. It had cost her a small sum to get said glasses in the first place but worth it. Being born visually impaired because of a lack of melanin to protect her retina, was unfortunate, especially since her vision would continue to decrease with age. Not to mention her increased risk of eye cancers because of UV damage from the lack of melanin as well. Really, sunglasses and prescription glasses were a must for her, this way she could have the best of both worlds.

Currently, however, her prized glasses were doing nothing to help in the way of her search for her purse, which was still suspiciously absent. She mused to herself that it was a miracle that whatever villain which had taken her purse missed her vintage camera. It used to belong to her grandmother and was still in surprisingly good condition from being over three decades old. Perhaps that was why it was missed, who would want an old X100S when so many more advanced models were available? Still, she held a fondness for the old ways of printing and developing pictures, not to mention that this camera held much sentimental value from being passed down from mother to daughter for three generations if she included herself. She found herself grateful that this camera might yet make it to being passed down a fourth generation.

A sense of irritation at herself, for having fallen asleep in the first place, developed from her sorrow over her lost purse. She wouldn't lose any money since she had a debit and you needed a code to access that, but it would undeniably be a hassle to get it all straightened out. A new debit card, driver's license, phone... Not to mention a new hotel key. _Damn_, she mentally cursed, hoping that the villain of a thief would only take the meager few pounds that she had left over from getting lunch and then dump the purse. If he was clever enough to use the key to find the right hotel she was staying at and got into her room...

What a disaster.

Letting out a long-suffering sigh before letting out a small cough, she turned to gaze speculatively at the flock of sheep which had taken to huddling on the side of the pasture opposite to her, as if they perceived a threat somewhere while they bleated plaintively. "Why...?" She murmured to herself, unsure as how to finish her question. Intrigued, she began to approach them only to stop when the sheep proceeded to retreat away from her whenever she went near them. Previously, it had been all she could do to get some personal space from the animals. What would cause such a change in behavior?

"Oi!" A man's voice called, causing her heart to leap in her chest and breaking her from her puzzled thoughts. The young woman whirled around to see a tall man hurrying over to her, waving his arm in the air to get her attention. "We need to talk."

Well, it wasn't as if she hadn't expected this to happen at some point. She was just happy that this didn't happen while she was sleeping... Although, on second thought, if he was here earlier, he might have prevented the robbery of her purse and the thief would have inadvertently become her alibi. As it was, however, she would simply have to get creative, as she really wasn't supposed to be here. At all.

"Yes, we do," she asserted in an authoritative tone, forming her expression into a frown. The man seemed surprised by this, as if he hadn't expected this particular response. His surprise only grew more pronounced by what she said next, "I am Gilly Hopkins, the Livestock Inspector." The woman, now so-named Gilly, made a move as if to reach something before making her expression even more sour and crossing her arms. "I would show you my ID, but your ram decided to try it on for size," she stated dryly before covering a cough with the back of her wrist and clearing her throat.

"Er, what?" The man blinked.

"Your ram ate my ID," she clarified. "I suspect by now it has made its home in his stomach."

"_What?_" He choked, likely shocked, in the young woman's opinion, that his ram would pull a move that most would expect of a goat.

"That was what I said too, followed by a few expletives. Now, we have a problem. Besides my lost ID, your sheep are behaving rather strangely. I would suspect this to be a case of animal abuse, since they had only begun to act this way around the time you had arrived—"

"_What?!_ You're making a big mistake, I'm not—"

"_However_," Gilly interrupted the man loudly, continuing on her previous train of thought before he had cut her off. "From the specimen that I have examined, this does not appear to be the case. They are well fed, uninjured, properly maintained, and have, until recently, displayed no outward sign of any untoward treatment. As this is a surprise inspection, I have to say this had bode well for you until, of course, this new behavioral pattern developed."

"Look," the man started, his eyebrows furrowed deeply. "I really think you've got the wrong impression here. I'm not—"

"Oi!" Another voice called, this one considerably more angry. "What do you think you lot are doing on my property, eh?!" The two of them looking up to see a large, bear of a man come down the hill towards them, looking suspicious and furious. He had a gun. Gilly grimaced, it appeared things had just gotten a lot worse. Still, she wasn't beaten yet.

"Ah, so you are the real owner, then?"

"I bloody well better be!"

"Then you should know that this man here has tried to commit a crime by impersonating you and is trespassing on your property." She gestured with an awkward cough to the gaping man beside her.

"**_What?!_**" He cried out in horror the same time the owner shouted it in outrage.

"Is that really all you can say?" The young woman directed in an irritated manner towards the first man. "Honestly, for a criminal, you are pretty daft." She was finding it difficult to talk and act like this, but it was quite fitting for the image she was attempting to project: confident, self-assured, and the slightest bit arrogant.

The tall, slender man could only sputter while the much shorter and bulkier man demanded, "Explain yourself, who are you?"

"Gilly Hopkins, Livestock Inspector. I would show you my ID, but one of your rams ate it."

The owner narrowed his eyes. "It's not breeding season, the rams are being kept separate from the ewes."

The woman raised her eyebrows in a disbelieving manner. "Yes, and? It is my job to inspect everything, not just this one pasture, sir. However, to insure security, it would be best to identify yourself. I cannot be sure that you are not like our friend here, otherwise."

"I'm Ralph Dunbar, the owner of this property," he growled irritably. "You know, this inspection you're claiming of wasn't expected. How can I be sure that you're not in league with this bloke? 'Seems too convenient with your identification noticeably absent.'" He was mocking her with his last sentence, derisively mimicking her posh word choice.

She sighed, thankful that her lens were currently tinted to counteract the bright sunlight, otherwise both men would have seen her eyes widening in alarm. As it was, they only observed her clenched jaw and raised eyebrows, likely they would think her a mixture of indignant and incredulous. "Because," she started forcibly before coughing once again and taking a moment to clear her throat of any tremor. "In that case, I would have declared him to be my associate if we were indeed working together. More likely, I would have been his understudy or assistant so as not to rouse suspicion by working against expected gender roles. Furthermore, all inspections are to be unannounced as per company policy to ensure that our clients are following regulations and are legitimate in their claims. Not to say that we are doubtful of your genuineness, Mr. Dunbar, sir, but it is insurance against others who may not be as forthcoming in their work."

The owner was still unconvinced and suspicious, for good reason. "And you expect me to believe that a company from the UK hired some American to carry out these inspections?"

"I am Canadian, but I lived near the border, so I suppose it is an understandable mistake to make. I was transferred here some time ago, along with a select few others, to continue to work in the Sussex branch of the company. However, if my being a foreigner offends or unsettles you in some way, I am positive that a 'native' replacement could be arranged."

The tall man was floored by this, completely in disbelief. He spoke for the first time since he had been insulted, "You have _got_ to be kidding me."

The young woman replied in a rather cheeky manner, "If you want me to be a midwife for your goats, it is going to cost you."

If the situation had been different, the taller man might have laughed at the clever quip, but as it was, he could only frown, put off by how the conversation had derailed, crashed, and burned. Honestly, he hadn't expected it to take this direction at all. He had visualized many responses but never, in a million trillion years, could he have foreseen this result.

Meanwhile, however, the shorter man had quickly become exasperated with the whole situation and decided to throw in the towel. It was too much trouble at this point. He just wanted them, whoever they were, _gone_ and _fast_. He stored his handgun in its holster with another irritated growl, not wanting any part of this idiocy any longer. "Look, Hopkins, is there anything _else_ you need to inspect?"

Relieved that a way out presented itself, Gilly seized it, carefully. "Hmm, I suppose not," she drawled, as if she didn't want to bolt first chance she got, as if she wasn't scared out of her mind with a good dose of panic, as if she wasn't an imposter with no clue of what she was doing. "You can expect a report and an analysis within the week, sir."

"Yes, yes," he snapped waving his hand in an agitated fashion. "Just go,_ both_ of you. I got a job to do... And I don't want to see either of your faces again. Make sure 'the company'-" his tone had become sarcastic "-sends someone with an actual ID next time."

She many have been pushing her luck, but Gilly told him, "Right, but before I go, I would warn you to watch that ram of yours. He will likely be experiencing indigestion soon enough. I am sure you know as well as I do which one I'm speaking of..." She smiled before coughing slightly. "He is a bit forward. Good day, Mr. Dunbar, sir." Then, quickly, before the surly owner could change his mind, she strode away as fast as she could manage without giving away her ruse. As soon as she was over the hill and out of sight, though, the façade dropped, and she was sprinting back the way she had originally entered the pasture in the first place.

Hopping the fence that was running parallel to the dirt road, Gilly exhaled, muttering to herself, "That was a close one..." Fiddling with her camera, she let out a sigh and began the long walk back to the nearby town, since she was unable to call a taxi with her cell phone located inside her currently missing purse. "Bugger," she swore, borrowing a curse word that she had heard many a person use on her long stay in the United Kingdom.

"Oh, don't swear," a voice groaned behind her, causing the girl to jump. It was the tall man from before. He had somehow managed to seemingly materialize behind her without alerting her of his presence until he spoke. Discretely, she glanced down in a bewildered manner at his feet. Despite the road being gravel, his footsteps were almost indiscernible underneath the sound of her own footsteps. She had feeling if they were on a different surface, say grass, carpet, or tile, his footsteps would be completely inaudible. The art of soundlessly sneaking around was obviously something he was well versed in. Maybe her fib of him being a criminal wasn't actually that far off the mark after all. He continued, oblivious of her internal analysis, "What happened to that posh, if snooty, dictation from before?"

Oh, he was trying to take the mickey of off her, likely revenge from the insult and sassy comment from earlier… Plus throwing him to the wolves. Not to mention, he was probably unconvinced of her performance, either. Well, as the British were fond of saying, 'in for a penny, in for a pound.' If she was going to lie like she did earlier, she was going to keep that lie alive for as long as possible until either this man gave up or it was impossible and useless to keep the lie going. Whichever came first.

"I have good reason to be upset," she told him. "My superior is not going to be happy with my report."

The taller man rolled his eyes. "Are you still on that? We both know it's complete rubbish."

"I have no idea_ what_ you are on about…" She declared airily.

"Oh, I believe you do, 'Miss Hopkins'," he said her name with sarcasm, not believing it to be her real name. "You're not _really_ a Livestock Inspector, are you?" He pressed, his longer strides effortlessly keeping up with her quick, yet shorter ones.

"You are mistaken," she insisted. "How many Livestock Inspectors have you met before me? Do you have anyone to compare me to?" At his hesitant expression, she nodded. "I suspected as much. Stop following me or I will report you, criminal."

"'Criminal'?" He sputtered before muttering under his breath darkly. Louder, he said, "Look, just – just stop for a moment, eh? I really _do_ need to talk with you, imposter."

Huffing, she turned around, finally deciding that the ruse was likely up. "What? What do you want, huh? Look, I'm sorry I used you as a scapegoat, I just…needed to get out of there. I'm having a bit of a bad day right now, and I doubt you wanna be on the receiving end of it…"

He blinked, surprised at how quickly her accent became more pronounced and less pretentious than before. Likely this was how she normally spoke. Just as he suspected, the person from before was all an act to weasel out of trouble, a bluff. He smirked inwardly at her clever ploy before growing serious once more. Appearance wise, his expression only grew more intense. "I'm afraid your 'bad day' is only going to get worse."

The young woman looked shaken by this, letting out a small hiccough, "Is that a… Is that a threat?"

"No," he assured her. "It's a fact." When the girl retreated fearfully away him several steps, he realized that he was going about this entirely the wrong way. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "That came out wrong…" He sighed before smiling and holding out his hand. "Hello, I'm the Doctor."

"Uh, I'm… Gilly Hopkins," she stated, cautiously taking his hand and giving it a small shake before dropping it as if it was hot.

'The Doctor' looked surprised. "That's your actual name, not an alias?"

Gilly flushed. "Well, my full name's Glenda, I just go by Gilly. Besides, lies are more convincing if you have a bit of truth woven in."

"Well, Glenda, I'm afraid to say that your life is in danger and that you're going to need more help than clicking your heels three times," he told her regretfully, making no move to approach her as she retreated another couple of steps back.

"Wh-What're you trying to say?" Her voice wobbled, heart beginning to pound double time as an all-consuming sensation of dread enveloped her.

"You are irradiated with dangerous levels of chronon radiation. Right now you're in the beginning stages of radiation sickness. If you don't trust me, you are going to die a horrible and painful death in under forty-eight hours."

* * *

**A/N: Well, here's my effort of a realistic person falls into Doctor Who universe. The main differences? She's not fan (actually, she doesn't know anything about Doctor Who...) and she has issues that are potentially life threatening and dangerous that have nothing to do with foreknowledge. **

**I've been inspired by a story called, 'Living Fiction' and have the resolve to read the other stories in Emptyvoices's community as soon as I'm able. I'm taking the idea of 'Artron Poisoning' and elevating it to another level. That's all I'm going to tell you. Anymore and I would be spoiling.**


	2. The Limits of Human Nature

_[...] the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his period, that he can know his chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances. In many ways it is a terrible lesson; in many ways a magnificent one. We do not know the limits of a man's capacities for supreme effort or willing degradation, for agony or glee, for pleasurable brutality or the sweetness of reason. But in our time we have come to know that the limits of "human nature" are frighteningly broad._

-The Promise, C. Wright Mills (1959).

* * *

She let out a weak laugh. "I think the joke is supposed to go, 'you're going to die in seven days.'" She was referring to a famous line of an old horror movie. The Doctor's face was grim, and he didn't join in her tense laughter. The dread that was beginning to pool in her stomach became more pronounced. "Oh, God," she choked, feeling ill. "You're serious."

"I would never joke about something like this," he informed her before extending his hand out to her once more. "Come on, we don't have much time before the radiation sickness _really_ begins to set in with you." She didn't take the proffered hand, didn't even so much as twitch. Her face was frozen in an unreadable expression, the tinted glasses covering half of her face the main cause for it being so indiscernible.

Internally, she was torn between believing him out of fear for her life and deciding that he was a complete lunatic out to kidnap unsuspecting women by calling himself a doctor, preying on the very fear of their mortality. Besides of which, who was to say that this wasn't a sick form of payback on this tall man's part as a revenge for almost getting him incarcerated? The more Gilly thought about it, the more the odds were against that the man in front of her was speaking the truth. He really wasn't inspiring any confidence in her based on her impression of him thus far.

She wondered how likely it was that she would be able to outrun him, if she would be able to sprint close enough to the town to be within hearing range and be able to scream loud enough before he caught her… The odds were decidedly not in her favor. Gilly most certainly couldn't fight him, not with her delicate and nonathletic frame against his lean and likely muscular one, especially if he was used to apprehending women on a regular basis.

Anything that would be useful in her plight was contained in her absent purse and, therefore, not of any use to her. This was a ghastly no-win situation. Her only choice would be to play along and hope for an opportunity to present itself where she could conceivably escape with any degree of success. As soon as she did get away, of course, she would go to the nearest clinic for a checkup. Just in case.

Reluctantly, she asked him with a cough as her stomach clenched uneasily, "Not saying that I believe you, but how do you know?"

The Doctor's expression shifted between irritation and impatience before he let out an exasperated sigh. "Humans, always asking questions, even when their life is in peril," he muttered without nearly as much bite as the words themselves suggested… among other things. While Gilly was not going to let one odd little comment distract her, she still absently filed away that information for later. The man continued, "I first found out by a massive spike of chronon energy coming straight from the Rift, which triggered nearly countless alarms on my TARDIS, especially after the first time it opened… I usually have Jack to watch over the little things, the misplaced beings, random bits of technology, and the occasional Weevil leaking through the scar, but _this_ was on a scale unheard of since the Rift itself being widened by a Slitheen! At some point, the Rift must have fractured, considering that I find you in Brecon instead of Cardiff proper…"

The young woman could only look at him rather helplessly, precious little of what he said made any sense to her at all. From what she did gather, he seemed to be more of a scientist or a technician watching the monitor for any unusual deviances. Likely he was someone from the government come to collect her because she was irradiated with this chronon energy. Somehow, she found herself liking the idea of him merely being a kidnapper more than him being a government agent, because then at least she had a chance of getting away.

The Doctor was still talking. "…got within ten meters of you, my sonic short-circuited! But by that point, you were close enough that I could literally smell the artron energy being produced by the chronon radiation. Still can, actually, it's taken some getting used to, especially with the amount increasing the longer we stand here. But more tangible evidence for you being able to see for yourself would be to remember how the sheep reacted around you, how their behavior suddenly changed to avoiding you completely. They were detecting the dangerously high amount of energy being emitted from your person. And, most incriminating of all, you've been coughing."

"'Coughing'?" Gilly parroted back numbly, the fear that she had been barely managing to keep at bay returned full force. Her stomach, churning with what had to be nerves, took a bad turn, and she felt like throwing up.

"It's the first sign of radiation sickness," came the somber reply. "And it's only going to get worse from there, if you don't **_trust me_**."

Despite herself, Gilly took a couple of steps towards him and his still outstretched hand before she realized what she was doing and, once again, hesitated. His gaze on her was intense, watching her every movement with great scrutiny. She would not even be able to turn around to run before he would be upon her and cutting the escape short. She swallowed thickly, trying to quell her nausea that had to be stemming from her fear but was finding it to be an impossible task. Gilly winced from a twinge of pain before she doubled over and threw up everything she had for lunch mixed in with drops of red.

_Red?_ She wondered in a dazed manner as she stared at the puddle of sick in shock. _I didn't eat anything red, and it's a primary color, anyway. _She swallowed again, tasting the acidic taste of sickness and the metallic taste of—

Her eyes widened in realization, and she threw up again in revulsion. There was more blood than before. Gilly began to tremble in fear. _He was telling the truth. Oh, God, he was telling the truth. I'm going to die._ She began to collapse to her knees but was prevented by strong arms grasping her. She didn't find the strength within herself to struggle. _I'm going to die._

The Doctor lifted Gilly into his arms and began to run back to where the TARDIS was parked. He thanked his lucky stars for not ending up parked back in the pasture, as precious time would have been wasted trying to climb the fence with the ill human in his arms. He didn't try talking to Gilly to keep her aware because he knew more than anyone else that in her condition, if she fell unconscious, none of the words in the world would work to keep her awake.

Not to mention, it appeared that her mind was so delicate at the moment, that even the simple hypnotic suggestion of trusting him was too much for her body to handle. The onset was always quick, he remembered having been told in the academy. That if there was a cure, it would have to be administered very early, within the first twenty-four hours, before the damage that was done was irreversible. As soon as there was enough artron energy manufactured by the chronon radiation to start changing the antibodies, hope for a cure was completely snuffed out.

Gilly had the fortune that he found her within the first quarter of an hour. However, she also had the misfortune that a cure for acute chronon radiation poisoning, let alone one for artron poisoning, was unheard of. It had never before affected a human and with Time Lords, the window of opportunity was nigh impossible to pinpoint since exposure was over centuries and built up over time. The latent period stretched over so long, it was too late by the time anyone found out what was happening to the afflicted Time Lord in question, artron poisoning would have already set in.

The Doctor's mind whirled at high speeds as he raced to his time-and-space ship. Trying to come up with an idea that might yet work to save this human's life. He didn't know her, but he didn't want her to die. He had already lost so much, had willingly given up everyone that meant something to him. Mickey, Jackie, Martha, Donna, Jack, and Rose… The level of wretched loss not necessarily in that order. He felt as if he had failed them, failed _her_, in what he had been forced to do to his best friend. Rose would have been so furious with him, for not being clever enough, not quick enough, not _strong_ enough to find some other way to help Donna.

He would carry that guilt with him until the day he didn't have any more regenerations in him and finally died. Somehow, he felt as if that day was closer than he thought. He _was_ in what was his twelfth regeneration, if he included that one regeneration that he dared not call 'the Doctor' and the Metacrisis.

He wouldn't fail this human, refused to. If she died under his care… Well, the Doctor didn't want to think about what might happen to him, what he might _do_, if she did.

Once he came to the door of the TARDIS, he had trouble trying to readjust the barely conscious woman his arms to get at the key in his pocket. Feeling frustrated and impatient, he snapped the fingers on one hand that he managed to free enough for the act before he strode inside, the doors closing behind him. He wasn't quite sprinting down the halls, but his pace was noticeably rushed and urgent.

The Doctor realized that he would likely have to synthesize a remedy himself, a sort of anti-radiation pill designed to target chronon radiation specifically. Unfortunately, that would take too much time, precious time he didn't have unless he found a way to buy himself more time. In the back of his mind, he was darkly amused that he, a Time Lord, would be strapped for _time_ of all things.

He considered using an emergency cryo-charge on her. It would lower her body temperature to absolute zero in about half a second, literally freezing her on the spot. It was an effective safety measure when someone's life hung in the very balance and time was needed before assistance could be readily available… However, the Doctor realized that even if she was frozen solid, the chronon energy wouldn't be effected by this and would continue to increase. The moment she would be unfrozen by the time the Doctor had synthesized a cure, because he _would_ create one, it would be too late. Death would be nearly instantaneous.

He also couldn't place her within the Zero room, as the type of treatment she needed was not covered by it. A cellular regeneration vault would not work either, as while it treated almost all cases of radiation poisoning by absorbing said radiation from the patient… This was one of those cases where it would not be of any use. Chronon radiation was one of the few types of radiation unable to be readily absorbed by the device. It wouldn't even slow down the effects long enough to be worth an attempt.

After a further moment of consideration, the Doctor decided that her best bet for survival would be under the influence of a stasis field. The artificial force field kept the effects of time and other outside influences from affecting the area within it, so it would be as if no time had passed at all for her, a state of suspended animation. Gently placing her on a gurney, the Doctor began to securely strap her in. She would need to remain within the field's boundaries at all times for it to maintain temporal equilibrium. Even one finger outside it would 'pop the bubble' so to speak. He would be taking no chances.

A quiet moan of protest drew his attention over to his half-conscious patient. She was clearly afraid, her tense body silently screaming at him. Whatever specific message her body language was trying to convey, however, was lost in the translation. She was in pain, the Doctor deduced, and likely afraid for her life. It was all the motivation he needed to continue.

The first to go was her camera, a model considered very high-tech for the mid-2010's, he noted absently before setting it aside. He carefully removed her floppy sunhat revealing colorless hair, and removal of her glasses, which revealed grey eyes. These two things added with her pale, colorless skin hinted toward albinism, an interesting fact that he stored away for later thought when he had time, when he knew for certain that she would live. Loose objects successfully removed and the girl snuggly strapped down, the Doctor rolled the gurney over to a wall where there was a metal door in the middle of the wall.

It appeared much the same as one of the cold chambers that cadavers would be placed inside while they were being stored at a morgue. This was actually not that far from the truth, as that was the main function of a stasis field in a TARDIS sickbay. It would prevent the corpse from decomposing and stop any natural degradation until it was ready for burial or incineration. For the most part, though, it was to keep the body preserved so that their Bio-Data Extract and mind of the deceased Time Lord could be uploaded into the Amplified Panatropic Computations Network of the Matrix, as per his people's custom. But, that wasn't to say that it couldn't serve other uses, such as it was now.

The Doctor disconnected the mat of the gurney that Gilly was strapped to and started to slide her in, feet first, when she once again gained his attention. "No," she breathed. "No… not… dead…" Her voice was faint, but he heard it nonetheless.

"I know," he assured her. "But you will be soon if I don't initiate this. I'm sorry, but it will be as if no time as passed at all. I promise." Then without further ado, he slid her inside the strongbox and sealed the door. Making adjustments, he set the interior so that air flow would be recycled continuously within the stasis field. With that task done and the field active, he left her alone to go to the laboratory within the TARDIS to attempt to create a remedy.

It was to Gilly Hopkins's misfortune that the Doctor didn't take into account the possibility that she would be _aware_ the whole while she was in the stasis field. As it was rather uncommon for the stasis field to be used this way and most Time Lords put in the same position were unconscious through of the whole duration. To make matters more unbearable for her, she was a _mortician_, of all things. It had been her_ job_ to handle the dead and prepare them for burial. She knew a mortuary drawer when she saw one, and there was no doubt in her mind that was exactly what she was inside of.

Never before had she been claustrophobic, but this was as good an opportunity for it as any. Gilly couldn't move or talk, she could only breathe and lie there in terror, wondering when her air could finally run out and she would suffocate. _A coffin has about two hours' worth of air_, she recalled. _So does that mean I only have two hours to live now instead of, what was it, forty-eight?_ This struck her as unfair, but further consideration proved it to be unlikely. _No, if he wanted me dead, this is hardly the most effective way to go about it. There's got to be something I don't know about. He said he didn't want me dead… Or, well, at least, he implied as much since he had been going through all of this effort so far._

It was hard for her to know what to think anymore, especially in the given circumstances. There was an upside, fortunately, the agonizing pain that had stolen her voice and ability to stand originally had disappeared, cut off as if it had never been or someone had found a figurative pause button. Gilly was hardly going to question or scrutinize it too closely. She wasn't a superstitious person, but even she knew the danger of certain key words or trains of thought that always seemed to jinx the heroes in all the stories she had read throughout her lifetime. She certainly wasn't going to tempt fate with this.

Still, even with the hope that she might not die within the next two hours from asphyxiation, a cold feeling of an innate sense of fear settled upon her. A primal fear of being trapped in an enclosed space in the dark was hard to fight, especially if one was immobilized and, therefore, unable to fight or run. Not that she would have been able to if she hadn't been strapped down, but it was the concept that really mattered to her at the moment, the principle of the thing. She was liking this tall man less and less.

Him and his perpetual tussled brown hair. It looked as if he had never been introduced to a hair brush or comb in his life. He probably rolled out of bed, smoothed his hair down with his hands, and called it a day. Somehow, Gilly felt, even that much was more effort than what he really did each morning. His mother would probably be horrified at its state of untamable wildness. She most certainly would never let her hypothetical child go around the house like that, but it would have been excused as young children don't know any better. Now, if they were talking about Greg, a very fine specimen of man who was the corner, and if she were married to him, she doubted that she would ever have to worry about his hair as it was finely cut. If she did have to, though, she wouldn't let him go around the house like that either.

Don't even get her started on those shoes. They were so very impractical, her honest opinion, and she should know since she had used to own a pair of her own until she found out, exactly, how unreasonable they were. You could hardly run in them for very long unless you wanted to gain blisters and sore feet. Despite being nicknamed 'sand shoes', they were hardly appropriate for walking on the beach with. And they were extremely time consuming to lace up or untie, whereas proper sneakers could be easily slid on and off.

And that pinstriped suit of his. How on Earth could anyone expect to do honest work in that thing? The pants he could maybe get away with if he took off the suit jacket. Surely, with how tightly it clung to his tremendously skinny frame, it would be hard to reach for something or stretch too far without worry of it tearing. Not to mention all the bills from the dry cleaners, especially if the suit was worn on a daily basis for work.

If this doctor was important enough to have an assistant named Jack, why was he not aware of these things that made him look somewhere between a homeless man, someone with no fashion sense, and someone who was merely a professional paper-pusher? It would imply work experience and getting his hands dirty to rise to that position of power while _somehow_ still maintaining the status of man-child. Unless, of course, he was one of _those_ people who, when they got into positions of power, they began to delegate everything unless it's something really important or would benefit them in some way. Didn't he say himself that 'Jack' usually took care of the 'little' things? She wondered why this Jack didn't complain about his superior before eventually deciding that the pay must have been lucratively good.

Gilly _usually_ wasn't this scathing in her summation of a person that she just met, but, then again, she _usually_ wasn't placed within a morgue cold chamber after being told that she was going to die in a very unprofessional manner. It screamed of someone who was making up everything as they went along. Improvisation was the father of vulnerability. If you had no clue of what you were doing and made up everything as you went along, how were you supposed to prepare for upcoming difficulties or avoid future failure? Future failure or difficultly that would result in her_ death_.

Gilly hardly thought she was overreacting, likely she was_ underreacting_ if anything else. She was just one step away from being buried alive by being placed inside of a cold chamber. Perhaps her original assumption of him being a kidnapper wasn't too far behind, but now Gilly had elevated him to the status of 'serial killer', assuming that he's done this with multiple women before who followed her general type. Frail-looking, short, foreign, and eye-catching in some manner or another. Her fatal mistake of garnering his attention had been from calling him a criminal and somehow fooling a sheep breeder into thinking she was the livestock inspector. She was striking more in the sense of being utterly strange and novel than being stunningly beautiful or anything like that. But, perhaps, being an albino had somehow added on to her worth of being his next victim in his eyes.

She found it amusing that coming from the one state in America most famous for its cheese and serial killers would in someway increase the likelihood of her being the victim of one, whether by a limited sense of irony or the dark sense of humor that she occasionally possessed. And then when you added on to the fact that she was a mortician who dealt with dead bodies on a weekly basis and was currently sealed inside of a mortuary drawer…

Gilly tried not to smile. If she did, she would probably start laughing and wouldn't stop. Which would be bad, considering how limited her air supply likely was, especially considering that she was in a cold chamber, _which she was most certainly _not_ thinking about and didn't find it at _all _funny_, _and _no_, those giggles were definitely _not_ coming from her_. The only way this could possibly get any worse, would be if the 'Jack' that her kidnapper had referred to was Jack the Ripper…

She howled with mad laughter, the sound of it echoing around her in the cold chamber she was trapped inside of, and _she_ was supposed to be the perfectly sane one.

* * *

**A/N: Hmm, this hadn't quite gone the way I expected, but you'll hear no complaints from myself. **

**I finally got around to creating a proper book cover for this story. The model used for Glenda "Gilly" Hopkins, is none other than the albino model Nastya Zhidkova. Purely because it was easier to find useable images of her than anything else and how she fit the mental image I had of Gilly. The only significant difference is that Gilly's eyes are gray.**

**Well, only one person had noticed thus far, but I had been placing various hints around this chapter and the last one concerning Gilly. I addressed many of them and explained them outright in this chapter except for one. If no one catches the big hint I threw out toward the middle of the chapter, I'll be severely disappointed.**

**Also, concerning Gilly's name, there's another pop culture reference in it besides the obvious one. Care to find it?**

**This chapter is a day late due to my laziness. Beware the Ides of March... I suppose I was not the only one to enjoy a caesar salad?**


	3. The Symbolic Paradigm

_The Symbolic Paradigm &amp; Its Four Main Assumptions:_

_1.) How people act depends on how they see and value reality._

_2.) People learn from others how to see and value reality._

_3.) People constantly work to interpret their own behavior and the behavior of others to determine what these behaviors "mean"._

_4.) When people do not attach the same meanings to the behaviors or perceive reality in the same way, there will be misunderstanding and conflict._

-The Practical Skeptic (6th Edition), Lisa J. McIntyre (2013).

* * *

By the time the Doctor had finally opened the mortuary drawer, Gilly Hopkins had long since fallen silent, staring numbly into the claustrophobic darkness. She wasn't scared or upset anymore, just numb. For her it felt like time had passed, but it was almost impossible for her to say how long it had been since she had been trapped in there. It had been both an instant and an eternity, a disconcerting limbo that she never wanted to ever experience again.

But leaving the cold chamber had brought back the pain, and Gilly didn't know which was worse, the agony or the indeterminate state. If the torturing sensation of her nerves being set aflame by the radiation hadn't made her breathless, she would have been shrieking like a banshee. As it was, she could only let out a choked half-whimper as the Doctor immediately threaded an IV into the crook of her arm. He connected it to a fluid bag filled with some unknown solution. He watched the medical cocktail dripped steadily from the bag, down the tube, and into her arm.

The affect was discreet and gradual, but eventually the production of artron energy from the irradiated DNA that was being bombarded by the chronon energy was impeded by the concoction that had taken the Doctor over a month to create, almost seven hundred and forty-one hours of work. With a little less than fifteen hours sleep throughout the whole affair, it was no wonder that the Doctor was absolutely knackered. Unfettered relief nearly overwhelmed the Time Lord as he undid the restraints that bound Gilly against the mat of the gurney.

She was too weak at the moment to get up, so the Doctor wheeled her over to one of the beds that was provided in the sickbay. With a quick movement, she was soon laying on a soft mattress, watching the Time Lord go about cleaning up the mess he had made earlier during the time she had been stored inside of the cold chamber. The sickbay was utterly silent, save for the noise produced by the Doctor straightening the room.

Ultimately, he completed the self-assigned task, but it wasn't done as efficiently or as precisely as the Doctor would have preferred. However, he was too tired to bother worrying about it now. At the moment, he could hardly keep his eyes open. There was only one more thing that needed to be done before he could retire for the next several hours. The Time Lord slowly walked back to the only occupied bed where his patient watched him with a mixture of wariness and resignation. "Sleep well," he told her, his voice hoarse from disuse over the past few weeks. "We'll talk after the both of us rest."

He reached above her, fiddling with an overhead device as she languidly watched him. After he had finished setting the device on number eight, Gilly opened her mouth to ask him something… but ended up forgetting what question she had been about to pose as her awareness floated away from her. Sleep was sudden, her consciousness faded away so rapidly; blown out like a flame from a birthday candle.

* * *

When Gilly woke up, she felt sluggish and very, very lazy. Blinking slowly, she gazed up at the ceiling and the device above her, time dragging on by for many long minutes before she decided that she should probably try to get up. Arms little better than limp noodles, the albino slogged out of the bed with a lackluster grace that belied how weak she felt from the excess sleep and the fatigue left over from the echoing aches of the radiation sickness that she had been suffering from. Gilly wondered if she was considered "cured" now. Surely, it couldn't be as easy as that?

When she stumbled out of the bathroom that she had almost blindly discovered, which had been attached to the sickbay, the ex-mortician concluded that her best course of action would be to take her chances and try to find her way out of wherever she was being detained. After grabbing her camera and glasses, her sunhat being oddly absent, she finally left the room. The hallway went in two different directions and, after a short deliberation, Gilly purposely went left instead of right, knowing full well that a majority of people tend to go right when the choice between the two paths is equal.

There wasn't any reason to believe that the tall man would have known this psychological fact ahead and planned the layout of this place in accordance to it. Realistically, it was actually quite illogical for her to assume that he would go to such lengths in the first place, that going right would be worse than going left. However, Gilly was grasping at straws, willing to do anything at this point to increase her likelihood of getting out no more scathed than she already was. So she went left.

The young woman had been walking down the halls for quite some time, turning left at each intersection if she couldn't go forward, but hadn't run into either a dead end or a way out. Actually, she could have sworn that she passed that same exact door seven times already. When time number eight happened, Gilly came to a stop and considered the reoccurring door. Curiosity got the best of her and she opened it.

The room was an exact replica of her childhood room.

She shut the door again and wordlessly continued on her way, determinedly ignoring the door, even as it appeared time and time again, taunting her. _What sort of sick person would go and…?_ She couldn't complete the thought, it was too horrible. _Has he been stalking me all this time?_

Seeing the room here, wherever here was, unsettled the albino, and as she made to pass the door to the room again, she paused, eying it as if it was a feral animal. She opened the door to room again, only to see to her amazement that it had changed slightly. While retaining strong similarities to her old room, it was not the same. Only the door was the exact same as the childhood room, down to the timeworn door knob and strange crack that looked like a two-year-old's attempt at a 'W' that for some reason sent both her mother and grandma snickering and commenting that it would look better on a wall. Gilly had been gravely mistaken. She let out a slightly hysterical laugh, leaning her head against the closed door. _Oh, this is too much. I'm going crazy now_, she thought.

Unbeknownst to her, the TARDIS had taken from her mind the room that brought her the most comfort. The sentient Time Ship had been unaware that Gilly would react so negatively to seeing an exact copy of the room there. So then she had adjusted the room just enough to where it would be taken as a coincidence, rightly assuming this time for that to be the proper course of action.

Gilly had entered the room this time after opening the door, feeling an urge to see just how far the similarities went between this room and her old one back at her parents'. Both rooms were a light lavender in color with hand-painted silver designs randomly littering the wall here and there, this room had stars and planets instead of leaves and vines. Gilly almost smiled at the memory of her older sister expertly painting the room, how she was told that the only way she could possibly help was to sit in the chair in the middle of the room and watch. Gilly was a dreadful artist.

The bed was a four-poster bed with only a metal bared headboard, at home she had a solid wooden headboard and footboard. There was the small wardrobe that was exactly the same, painted white on the outside, but when she opened it, instead of the plain white she had been expecting, someone had painted the inside of it the same color as her room with more silver stars dotted throughout the empty interior. The huge white bookcase that was in the corner was also completely empty.

For some reason, that disappointed Gilly, as hers had been overrun with her extensive collection of books, all of which were worn from regular use, filled with her notes and thoughts in the margins, dog-eared, and had numerous passages highlighted. She had, quite literally, loved her books to bits. At times, she had to replace a few copies of her books and transcribe the notes and highlights into the new copies before the vigorous reading would start again.

The shelves along the walls of the room still contained a massive shell and rock collection, but the collection contained many pieces that were utterly foreign and unknown to her, appearing almost alien. The picture frames on the walls and on various hard surfaces were also empty, waiting to be filled with pictures. So much unlike her own room, which had all the frames filled with pictures her grandma and mother had taken themselves.

The only thing that was exactly the same, was the small collection of stuffed animals in the corner. Many of the stuffed animals were creatures from Earth, but a few were on recognizable. _Since when does a koala have brown fur and six legs?_ Still, they were all soft and cute to Gilly, which were the only guidelines she went by when deciding if she wanted the plush or not when buying one. Setting down the hexaped koala, her shoes scuffed across the hardwood floors to the window. It only displayed a scene that would be seen in those increasingly uncommon, 2D, science documentaries.

Nowadays, there were dime-a-dozen IMAX theaters with the 3D viewings for movies and documentaries, sometimes a 4D movie would come out and those were always exciting. But her family was strange in the sense that it contained technology that was over fifty years old, practically antiques. Video tapes and old cassette players, even a flip phone. "_Can't butt-call someone when you've got a cover on it!_" Her grandma, ever the blunt pragmatist, would declare whenever she was pestered into buying an 'iPhone 31 StarBurst' or something else with a touchscreen.

Viewing the wondrous and almost hypnotic scene a little longer through the window, Gilly was vaguely reminded of Tumblr or Instagram, old sites from her grandma's generation that ended to be spammed with created images like the one before her. The last post she had seen was something about the Moon hatching or some nonsense. _First it was made of green cheese, then it's a man, and now it's an egg? What will we come up with next? _Gilly pondered absently before leaving the view and realizing that she was still no closer to escaping. She was hopelessly lost in what appeared to be in the same series of hallways, no matter which direction she took.

The ex-mortician stood in the middle of her room a bit helplessly, mind blank for what she should do next. Life was not like a video game. She wouldn't be getting any hints from a floating, blue fairy anytime soon. So, she waited, assuming that her captor would find her one way or another, and took a seat at the desk and chair combo that rested on a worn rug. Gilly fiddled with her camera, going through the pictures that she had already taken. One of the blurry and out of focus ones made the young woman purse her lips in a bitter yet resigned manner. She had taken that photo by accident when one of the sheep had bitten her after she had attempted to pet it and got too close. Her leg gave a weak throb at the memory.

The sound of footsteps snapped her out of her reverie, and Gilly looked up to see the Doctor enter the room, looking very well rested and decidedly more cheerful. "Hello!" He exclaimed with a grin. "How did you sleep?"

"Like the dead," the ex-mortician responded with no small amount of dark humor.

The man scrunched up his face at her joke before scolding, "You would've been dead if I hadn't intervened."

"That hardly makes you August or September," came the dry retort. At his blank expression to her reference, she shook her head. "Never mind, they're characters from an old series my mother adored. But thank you for curing me, I guess."

The Doctor winced, running a hand through his hair in a nervous manner as he avoided looking at the human in front of him by letting his eyes scan the room. "You aren't cured," he informed her emotionlessly, stating a fact. "The dose of the liquidized _aɬʒonpoɾnow gɛɾos ɛθldɑɹɪ_ is only temporarily preventing further poisoning."

"Ack izh own…Coosh geh… ehthl…" Gilly struggled to pronounce the name of the medicine that was given in another language.

"_aɬʒonpoɾnow gɛɾos ɛθldɑɹɪ_," the Doctor obligingly repeated, his voice sounding almost musical in the liquid, chiming language. It sounded ethereal, rather like what Gilly pictured elvish sounded like from that nearly-a-century-old trilogy that she had in her room. She knew that there was no chance in hell that she would be able to correctly pronounce those lyrical syllables, even if her life depended on it. Still, Gilly silently vowed to herself that she would practice in private and would, one day, make the words sound passable.

Presently, however, she didn't dare make a second attempt, knowing she would mangle it. The Doctor seemed to realize this as well, for he said, "The closest translation would be 'renders radiation useless'. Which is, admittedly, more of a description than a name. It basically operates as an artificial anti-radiation immune system. As long as the compound is in your body, it combats the processes of the irradiation of your DNA from the chronon energy and prevents the eventual formation of artron energy. So, I s'pose you could call it a sort of anti-radiation mediation. A dose will have to be taken daily, but not to worry, I have it in pill form so you won't need to have it administered intravenously except in dire circumstances where you'll need its high-immediate benefits."

The tall man in front of Gilly had her convinced that he really was a doctor at this point. It would have been extremely difficult, even for her, to keep up such a pretense if there really wasn't a medical degree or two involved. Besides of which, that foreign term was too beautiful and natural to be made up anyway. The young woman relaxed, comforted by the almost familiar situation of going to a medical practitioner and getting a medical prescription. _So all I need is some pills? That's not so bad…_

She had apparently spoken her thoughts aloud if his pensive expression was any indicator. "_Weeell_," he drew out the word reflectively. "You'll also need periodic examinations and the occasional energy extraction. The level of artron exudate will have to be maintained at a safe amount and continuously observed."

_Then again, maybe not._ Still, Gilly would rather have whatever treatment this Doctor was suggesting than being dead. She liked living, thank you very much. Unfortunately, this treatment gave the impression of it being intensive, and it worried her about what possible options she might have. "So, what type of doctor would I have to see back in the States, or are all of your colleagues only on this side of the hemisphere? Would my insurance cover it, or would I have to pay out of pocket? What are my chances of survival with this treatment you're suggesting? Is it indefinite? Do I—"

"Just – Just hold on a tic," the Doctor begged her off, beginning to look troubled. "I think you're getting the wrong idea."

"You are a doctor, aren't you?"

"Well, _yes_, but—"

"Then what's the problem?" Gilly interrupted, annoyed. "You said you were a doctor, and you just prescribed my treatment. Now that I'm well enough and not in any immediate danger of keeling over, I can go home with the medication and resume treatment at a local hospital or specialized facility or something." A strained silence blanketed the room between the two of them.

"…It's not as easy as that," he finally managed, walking over to take a seat on the bed and leaning forward. They were nearly eye-to-eye now, and Gilly had the strangest impression that he had committed an action similar to that of an adult crouching down to become eye-level with a child. It probably didn't help that he was beginning to speak to her slowly and simply, "My name is 'the Doctor'. I'm a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, and I travel through time and space in my ship, the TARDIS, which we're in right now. Chronon energy—"

Gilly snorted, finally snapping out of her state of shock. "You're alien?"

"Yes… Does that bother you?"

"Not half as much as the idea that the man responsible for the fact that I'm still breathing is completely off his rocker."

"Oi," the Doctor yelped, offended. "Am not!"

"Aliens? Space ships? Time machines?" With each word, her voice became more incredulous. Skeptically, the albino crossed her arms, dismissing, "Yeah, _right_."

The Time Lord began to grow irritated. "I'm telling the truth. Why are you acting like that?"

"Because everything you've said in the last couple of minutes is completely ludicrous. The idea of you being an alien and the two of us being on your space ship… Calling that far-fetched is an understatement, but time travel? That's crazy. _You're_ crazy. It's not possible."

"Yes, it is," the Doctor retorted. "I've done it more times than all the days you've been alive. It's really very simple and most definitely possible, especially if you're me."

Gilly scoffed, "Oh yeah?" She smirked before leaning forward and challenging him, "_Prove it_."

* * *

**A/N: Yes, before you ask, the language the Doctor spoke in is Gallifreyan, specifically the version of Gallifreyan developed by the staff of 'The Gallifreyan Conlang Project.' Conlang meaning a constructed language. They built (and are still building) the grammar and the vocabulary from scratch until it's a working language that people can have conversations in. Actually, it _is_ a working language. Crude, but passable. The dialect they're developing is the most prominent one in the TV series is called Circular Gallifreyan. **

**Really, it's the only one of it's kind, and it serves the purpose needed in this story. Be expecting many reappearances and different words.**

aɬʒonpoɾnow gɛɾos ɛθldɑɹɪ

Translation: renders radiation useless. [Lit.: renders useless energy discharge]

Pronunciation (as far as I can tell): ack-_je_on-poor-now... koosh-geh-rose... eth-ul-dah-ri

(The "_je_on" almost sounds like "shawn" or the first syllable of the French name "jean". The "ri" at the end is pronounced like you're going to say "rip" but the 'p' is silent.)

**Okay, that this point it should be obvious, this fact about Gilly's background. This chapter has so many hints stuffed into that one paragraph alone when she's in her room, it's I like I've thrown a brick at your face. I'll even give you a pointed question: What year is Gilly from?**

**Well, for the adventure, I doubt you'll recognize it. It's titled under 'The Eyeless' by Lance Parkin. It's cannon for 'Doctor Who', so don't worry your little heads. The timeline is set right after 'Journey's End' but before 'The Next Doctor'.**

**Oh, and the six-legged koala that Gilly mentioned is called a Flubble. They exist in 'Doctor Who' cannon.**


	4. The Initial Difference

_Chaos theorists work forward from the principle they call "sensitive dependence on initial conditions." In other words, a very small initial difference many lead to an enormous change to the outcome. This principle is sometimes called the 'Butterfly Effect.'_

-The Practical Skeptic (6th Edition), Lisa J. McIntyre (2013).

* * *

Gilly Hopkins followed the Doctor through the hallways and into a cream colored room with a clear tube in the middle that seemed to glow a diffuse teal. There were a set of metal stairs on the far end that curved upwards. The Doctor gestured for her to go first and, hesitantly, the albino complied. As her feet finally touched down on a hard, smooth floor, she looked up to see a place that could definitely be considered alien. _Props for being prepared_, she thought. _But anyone could make a set like this if they had enough money and time on their hands_. As she gazed about her, Gilly deduced that she was in the control room, if the giant console slap-bang in the middle of the room on the circular, top-most level of metal grating was any indicator. For a supposed space ship, it was surprisingly organic in appearance, lots of coral to go with the metal.

A bronze colored light was provided through the roundels in the walls, which meshed quite pleasantly with the soft teal light being emitted from the console. There were six coral support struts that looked somewhere between deer antlers and trees. The struts sprouted from the lower level of metal grating that seemed to be in the shape of a hexagon, which Gilly hesitantly stepped on, the grating being the only barrier between her and the cream room below. It continued to hold her weight and Gilly noticed that the level of grating she was on continued underneath the circle level of grating, becoming a solid sheet of metal as it bore all the wires and cables and tubes connected to the console.

Gripping on the railing, Gilly used it to guide herself around the upper-grating-level perimeter as she tried to take everything in at once. She noticed an out-of-the-way metal ladder which lead to a metal grating walkway above her head that hugged the wall. There was a gap in the railing, and she stepped up to the next level, now close to the console itself. It looked…old, for lack of a better word. Stone supports sectioned the console into six separate panels, while the base and trimming of it was made of coral. The teal light was emitted through what appeared to be frosted glass, and scattered on top of it were various buttons, levers, knobs, and notches. There were also devices, switches, gizmos, and cranks. There was a monitor and a keyboard situated almost randomly on one of the panels. The screen frame had several sticky notes attached, but instead of words, there were complex and simple circle designs.

All in all, it was very impressive, which Gilly didn't withhold from the Doctor. He seemed to preen at her words of praise concerning his ship's console room, looking very smug and proud. "And that's not all," he crooned. "Did I mention we can go anywhere in space and time?" The man seemed barely able to contain his gleeful excitement, practically skipping up the two grating levels and over to the console panel across from hers. His grin was wide and eager as he asked, "What's the one place you ever wanted to go to? The future? The past? A distant planet or somewhere close to home? Somewhere that could only have come out of your wildest dreams or maybe somewhere that you would have never even begun to think of? Eh? Your choice. Where do you want to go first?"

The ex-mortician could only blink at him dumbly. "Blame the radiation if you want to," Gilly eventually began after a long moment. "But my mind's completely blank." The Doctor's face vaulted in disappointment. "Really, it's all kind of on the spot, can't think of anything, nothing comes to mind… Probably doesn't help that my mind was blown from this mesmerizing environment."

"Nothing? Not even one, small, teensy idea?" The Doctor prodded.

"No, sorry. I mean, I still can't quite believe we're in a time machine or whatever. You're the pilot, put it on random or something. Impress me." Honestly, she just wanted a chance to see if he really was as mad as she thought he was. She may have been able to give him the benefit of a doubt with the whole space ship idea, but time travelling? _Seriously, a time machine? What a terrible lie. The amount of paradoxes alone it would cause_-

Her train of thought was entirely interrupted when the whole area gave a violent shudder. With a screech of fear, Gilly clung to a support strut, her heart beating frantically. Words failed her as it felt like an earthquake passed through, something that she was for certain wasn't common in Europe. The Doctor ran around the console, flipping switches and yanking down levers, pressing buttons here and there. It seemed like it should be more than a one-man job, and this opinion was only strengthened when he used his _foot_ of all things to kick at a wayward switch that was currently too far from his grasp. It was only when he brought out a mallet to hit the console that she began to seriously fear for her safety. _Did he actually pass a driver's test for this? Do they even _have_ driver's tests for time machines? They must have, they_ better_ have, or I'm doomed…_

Eventually, they came to a shuddering halt, but Gilly refused to release her cicada grip on the coral support strut, in case it was only a temporary relief. The Doctor regarded her with some amusement. "It's safe to let go now. We've landed."

Within an air of wounded dignity, she carefully unlatched her limbs one after the other from her safe haven, tentatively standing on the ground with one hand on the support strut. She eyed the floor at if it were a wild thing. The Time Lord responsible for all her troubles watched her, completely entertained by her actions. He never had a companion act like this before, and it was beyond hilarious to see her so off-balance on her first trip. He didn't like cats much in this regeneration, but he was greatly reminded of one in a positive sense as he watched her attempt to act as if nothing had happened and fail.

"Don't worry, you will get into the swing of things soon enough," he told her. It wasn't his intent to sound patronizing, but that was exactly how Gilly took it. She sent him a mutinous glare that the Time Lord was seemingly impervious to as he sauntered towards the door, grabbing his coat on the way out. The young woman was left with little choice but to stumble after him and into the outside world. The door shut behind her firmly and locked, providing a solid surface for her to stumble back against in shock. They were most certainly _not_ on Earth.

They were on a beach with white sand reminiscent of the picture of the Bahamas that she saw on a magazine. Sea-green waves rolled continuously onto the shore, crashing into it and reluctantly slithering away before returning in a never-ending cycle. It was late afternoon and warm, almost tropical, despite the breeze that tugged persistently on her loose hair. Faintly, Gilly regretted that she didn't bring her sunhat, she would get sunburned out here. Her glasses tinted themselves darkly to block out as much as the brightness as they could.

To the Doctor and Gilly's left was a large cliff made up of different apartment blocks, terraces, and observation decks, all built to get a view of the ocean. They were stacked together like puzzle pieces, rising high into the sky. Beyond them, the occasional tower or spire would peak above, hinting at more to see. None of the buildings were in any designs of Earth architecture that were familiar to the woman at all, which might have been clue enough. The biggest hint that she wasn't home, however, was that the sky was a shade of green that reminded her of those obsessively maintained laws in suburbia, a thick green that was almost bluish in color, it was so rich.

The Doctor took in her expression of unconcealed awe and surprise with great relish, as if he had missed it. Only too happy to, he offered an explanation for the sky's odd color without Gilly even needing to ask, "Green skies like this happen when you get a lot of water vapor in the atmosphere. On Earth, you get them too, but only if a tornado's on its way. Currently, we're on a planet nestled deep in Galaxy Seven, or the Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy, as it used to be known until the tourist board changed it. We're almost exactly 290,000 light-years away from Earth, and, incidentally, it's almost the year 290,009. If we had a really powerful telescope, we could look through it and see the Earth in the year 2009!" His grin was smug as he rocked back on his heels as if to say, 'Ha! I told you so.'

"Wow," was all Gilly could say. She sat down.

"Alright?" The Doctor asked, a concerned look briefly flitting across his face. "Are you feeling ill? We can go back if you—"

"No," the ex-mortician immediately refused, sick of being stuck inside for what felt like forever. "I just… need to process this. I'm not on Earth."

"No, you're not," the Doctor agreed.

"I'm no longer in the year 2049."

"No, you're not." But the Doctor did store that piece of information away for later. she was, apparently, not from 2011 like he assumed when he first met her.

"The sky's green."

"Yes, it is. Getting the idea, now?"

"Oh yeah, like a brick to the face," she informed him before forcing herself into a standing position, dusting the sand off of her leggings and blue polyester dress. She shucked off her ballet flats and held them in one hand, gesturing with the other for the Doctor to lead the way. "After you," she told him, wiggling her toes in a thrilled manner at the sensation of the sand on her bare feet.

She had to admit, this was entirely impressive and utterly impossible to fake. She curled her toes for a moment in unease before, taking a steadying breath, she pushed off the TARDIS door she had been leaning against for strength and followed the Doctor. The beach was beautiful and tranquil, giving the impression of an untroubled place. Gilly found herself beginning to relax, a smile forming on her face. She had been so apprehensive about the 'trip' that the Doctor had mentioned to her, especially when he tried to explain to her earlier that his space ship was a time machine. And that he was an extraterrestrial.

She had, quite frankly, thought he was _nuts_, and, like the idiot she was, she had challenged him to 'prove it'. So here they were, _not on Earth_, on a deserted beach, wandering around the perimeter by the rolling waves and enjoying the nice weather. Well, more like Gilly was enjoying the nice weather, because she had been convinced that she would never see the light of day again. The Doctor was enjoying the look of bliss on his new companion's face, which, if Gilly had noticed, she would have found unsettling and creepy on so many levels. But, she didn't, and was trying to figure out a way that she could try to weasel out another trip to some other unearthly place before he took her home.

Suddenly remembering herself, she stopped abruptly, causing the Doctor to tense and stop too, a look of wariness developing on his face as he gazed around, trying to ascertain the reason for her sudden change in behavior. There was nothing he could see. The beach was completely empty, the sand scrubbed clean of almost all evidence that people had come down here to sunbathe, build sandcastles, and read bad books. The beach was broken up by rows and columns of metal posts, all that remained of what had used to be windbreakers, boardwalks, and piers. The metal posts that remained were terribly corroded by the saltwater, and the sand had drifted up, half-covering everything. There was no sound except the wind and their brea—

_Click._

The Doctor whirled around, expecting the worst: a gun, a malevolent creature of some sort… But no, it was only Gilly who had taken out her camera and was taking a careful picture of the ocean and green sky with an almost reverent look on her face. Turning around, she took another picture of the cliff-sides before turning off her camera and allowing it to settle back to where it originally rested against her lower torso. She caught the dirty look he was giving her for startling him, _because there was no way that she could actually _scare_ him_, since never before did he have companions who took pictures.

She scrunched her face back at him. "Well, _sorry_," she said defensively, even though he had yet to say anything to her, but he supposed that his expression had done the talking for him. "Us humans get faulty memories when we get older, plus my vision's starting to go. Back at home, I heard they were coming up with new technologies every day… I just wanted to have a picture of this place, in case they invent something to fix my sight. If not, well, I'll have something to show my kids anyway."

The Doctor went cold. "You have kids?" He didn't even consider. The possibility had been so far from his mind, and with her this young, likely around her late twenties, the children would be still dependent upon her, especially if there wasn't a father in the picture—

"Huh? Oh, no, not yet. Someday, maybe." She gave a silly smile, her thoughts obviously elsewhere and she, therefore, didn't noticed the look of unadulterated relief on the Time Lord's face.

_Well, that's one less problem,_ he thought to himself. The biggest problem was, however, he still didn't break the news to Gilly yet. The problem of her never being able to get home. The Rift didn't just drag her thirty-eight years into the past, it had also brought her from another dimension entirely. There was no way she would ever be able to get home, what Rose had done with the dimension cannon had been an exception, the _only_ exception on extenuating circumstances. _Not that it mattered,_ he thought bitterly. _She ended up being stuck in Pete's World with the Metacrisis, anyway_.

"So, where are we, exactly, besides Dwarf Galaxy Seven?" Gilly asked.

The Doctor, thankful for a distraction, corrected, "It's called either Galaxy Seven or the Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy, not—"

Gilly made a dismissive sound. "I was close enough. You knew what I was talking about."

Rolling his eyes at her childishness, he answered her original question, "We're by the ruins of the city of Arcopolis. It's on top of the cliff. We can't quite see it at the moment because of the tourist district blocking the view."

"Oh, that must've been those towers I saw," she realized.

"Down in one," the Doctor agreed.

"I've always wanted to see the ruins in Greece," the albino reflected wistfully. "But I'm sure this will more than make up for the lost opportunity." At the brunette's questioning look, she explained, "It was either that or the UK, and I couldn't afford a tour guide for either, so I had to go with the English-speaking countries."

Bobbing his head in acknowledgement, the Doctor once again continued his trek along the beach, only this time heading towards the cliff-side. Gilly scrambled to keep up. "Well, Glenda Hopkins—"

"—it's Gilly—"

"—I'm about to show you a city that's been completely deserted for over fifteen years," he continued on, mindless of Gilly's irritated correction. The two of them approached the walls of the cliff where there were the old ways of transportation, namely anti-gravity lifts, the tubes translucent and clear to display the glorious view for the people's journey to or from the beach. The Doctor went up to the blocked off entrances while Gilly wandered off to find a set of stairs. The heavy doors refused to budge for him, and, reluctantly, he gave up, striding after the young woman who was starting to get a bit too far way.

It took maybe ten minutes or so before they found a spiral staircase that led up a couple of levels. They went up it only to find themselves at a dead end, their path being blocked by a large, rounded window. Gilly, assuming they would get no further, started to descend several steps before she heard a queer sounding warble and the shattering of glass. She whipped around to see the Doctor stuffing something inside of his pocket and entering the through the threshold of the non-existent glass barrier.

"Was vandalism really necessary?" The albino groaned in exasperation.

"Well, it's not as if anyone's here to care," the Time Lord retorted. "Watch your feet."

Huffing, Gilly stuffed on her ballet flats and gingerly walked through the glass into the flat. The space was large and open. The women would have called it airy if it wasn't so musty from fifteen years of abandonment. Sectional sofas littered around what had to be the living room, plush throw blankets and pillows placed randomly on them. A small robot of some kind was in the middle of the room that looked like a mix between a Roomba 880 and Baymax. Several rather beautiful paintings were placed on the otherwise-bare walls, their colors fading from being in the sun for so many years. However, the paintings were the only colorful colors in the room, the rest was all monochrome, black metal, and dark glass, certainly fitting in with the idea of it all being futuristic.

The Doctor had moved towards the back wall where another window was located, studying the view in front of him featuring the city. More than a little eager to see some actual ruins, Gilly was quick to join him and take in the view herself. Her first impression was that the two of them had somehow been shrunk to the size of Barbie dolls and placed within a child's city made of building blocks. There were towers in the shape of corkscrews, giant sphere buildings, domes on top of single and skinny rectangular columns, pyramids, trapezoids, and more, so much more. Each building had walkways and metal roads that interconnected with them like someone had put black and silver streamers on the children's building block city.

"Wow, and I thought the physics teachers back in college were impressive with their demonstrative precarious structures," Gilly finally commented.

"The citizens of Acropolis had centuries to get everything down to an art form." The Doctor picked up an abstract-shaped, metal piece that looked like it belonged in a museum. "Every curve, every line, every angle in this city has been calculated to five decimal places. Most civilizations, if they last long enough, can reach the stage that this builders had. Used to be a brilliant place to live, very peaceful."

"Sounds like Utopia," Gilly commented.

The Doctor winced, unwanted memories being stirred from the very word. Reluctantly, the Doctor moodily said, "…I s'pose…"

Gilly looked up in surprise at the sound change of attitude, but the Time Lord refused to meet her questioning gaze, his own stare caught by something else entirely. She followed his line of sight and cringed. There was a giant black structure that dwarfed the rest of the buildings easily. It was an eyesore, in the general shape of a pyramid but covered in sharp angles and cruel-looking spikes. It was terribly ugly and utterly alien in appearance next to the smooth and dainty structures the rest of the city presented. As she looked upon it, the malevolent structure filled her with a sense of dread.

"Wh-What _is_ that?" Her voice quivered despite her best attempts to hide her unease.

"The Fortress," came the quiet answer. "And the reason why this city, this… Utopia has become ruins and devoid of life ever since fifteen years ago."

"It's unsettling," she told him. "Like it can almost see me…" The Doctor had nothing to say to that, and a silence stretched between the two of them, broken only by the distant sound of the sea, so far away from them now. It was eerie here in the desolate city where millions of people once lived, where it was once filled with sound and life. Now, there was nothing.

It was a long moment before the Doctor asked, "So you mentioned that you've been meaning to get up close and personal with some ruins?"

* * *

**A/N: This chapter is called 'The Initial Difference' for a very good reason. This is where things will actually begin to change, that cannon will begin to bend and alter itself as you will see in the next chapter.**

**As a reminder before anyone asks, yes, this adventure is cannon. It is a 'Doctor Who' book called 'The Eyeless' by Lance Parkin.**

**Anyway, Happy Easter, I guess.**


	5. Set of Circumstances, No Guarantees

_To understand a particular social event or interaction, one must take a multitude of factors into account. Generally, it is impossible to make predictions with absolute assurance. One can frequently predict what _most_ people will _likely_ do under a particular set of circumstances, but one can offer no guarantees._

-The Practical Skeptic (6th Edition), Lisa J. McIntyre (2013).

* * *

"Doctor," Gilly declared. "This is all your fault."

"_My_ fault?" The Doctor sputtered. "Since when is it _my_ fault?!"

"Since you decided to help our muggers with grammar!" She snapped before deftly using her foot to kick at an attacker that was about to hit her with a pipe.

And to think that this had all started out calmly enough…

The two of them had left the flat by breaking another window to Gilly's silent displeasure, and, after sneaking gingerly across several decrepit walkways, they had entered yet another building and descended to the ground floor at the young woman's insistence. The two of them walked on the ground, which appeared to be a giant metal travelator. It didn't work anymore and rubble was scattered on it, parts of the buildings that had broken away with neglect. They had been making little headway, so they climbed up onto the monorail line that ran through the city, in the hopes to avoid the worst of the damage, as neither of them were exactly wearing the proper footwear at the moment.

Before, it had been hard for Gilly to really see that the city _was_ in ruins with her limited long-range vision, but after traipsing around in it with the Doctor, it would have been impossible to deny it now. There wasn't any traffic from those strange, supposedly-flying vehicles that the Doctor had pointed out to her earlier in a garage. While the buildings were, for the most part, intact, there were cracked and missing windows, water run-off that formed grooves into the sides of the buildings, and long streaks of rust.

In the distance, there was a bridge that was vaguely reminiscent of the Golden Gate Bridge, looking as if it was about to collapse any moment, barely holding on with over half of the supporting cables snapped. Ivy began to conquer and hold dominion over the tall skyscrapers, determinedly clinging to the metal sides with a tenacity unique to plants on their road of conquest. Fires had broken out at some point during the fifteen years. Various towers and buildings reduced to charred skeletons of their former glory, leaving crumbled remains of blackened metal.

There was a surprising lack of rot, from what Gilly could see, mostly just rust, crumbled chunks of rubble, and corrosion from years of weathering without any intervention. In fact, the opposite of rot was occurring, growth in the form of delicate plant life was taking over the spaces between the metal and concrete that seemed to consume the city. Weeds, grass, saplings, and flowers spouted between the cracks and holes, showing that nature was an indomitable spirit, able to outlast the people who had once thought to have conquered it.

It reminded Gilly of the big cities back at home. They weren't nearly as awe-inspiring or grand as Arcopolis had once been, but they were just as much metal and concrete as this city once was. For a moment, the albino felt a sense of satisfaction from the plants taking back the land. She walked on the planks and on the metal sides of the monorail to avoid trampling the plant life, not wanting to hinder the ongoing war between Nature and the fading remains of a long gone civilization.

The Doctor suddenly froze, coming to an abrupt stop and making Gilly jolt in the middle of her make-believe circus balancing act. Her arms flapped in the attempt to keep herself steady and avoid falling off the side. Wobbling, she regained her equilibrium and frowned at her tour guide who had been quiet for some time, having been enjoying the sites as much as her. He whirled back around and retraced his steps before crouching down to peer at something, whipping out a rather sharp-looking pair of glasses.

Self-conscious of her pair of not-exactly-aesthetically-pleasing glasses, Gilly fiddled with them as she hopped down from her perch to a nearby plank. He was looking at a footprint, and the ex-mortician couldn't help but gasp in surprise. The Doctor looked up at her, an amused glint in his eyes. "It appears were not alone," he chirped. When Gilly continued to stare at the footprint speechlessly, he continued in an attempt to be reassuring, "Culture shock, happens to the best of us."

"I don't know if this really counts as culture shock," she murmured dazedly. "I've heard of hexadactylism but…" She shook her head. "I guess this means a native or two survived?"

"Yes, it appears so…" But the Doctor looked troubled by this, as if this news was something to be dreaded rather than rejoiced. Looking up, something seemed to catch his attention, for he stood up quite suddenly.

"What?" She asked, turning to look in the hopes to see what her guide had seen. There was nothing of interest. "What is it?" The Doctor said nothing in answer, abruptly taking off instead, clambering down from the monorail line and running down the road. "Hey!" The ex-mortician cried out in protest. "Wait!" Hurriedly, Gilly gingerly climbed down and chased after the Time Lord. As she approached the corner the Doctor had turned around, she could hear a voice shrieking something unintelligible. Sprinting at this point, Gilly skidded around the corner to see the Doctor stumbling back, as if he had been hit. "Doctor!" She cried out, hurrying over. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he answered gruffly. "Just a bit off balance."

Gilly only looked at him dubiously, the Time Lord having displayed the impeccable balance that any feline would envy up until that moment. She sincerely doubted that he had merely stumbled or that the earlier shriek had been him. Speaking of shrieking, Gilly noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her attention away from the Doctor. The two of them were surrounded by a mob of eight children.

Not one of them above the status of preteen, some of them as young as seven. Most of them appeared to be boys and none of them wore clothes that were the right size. The clothes were surprisingly made of what appeared to be good quality material, decorated with random bits of colorful foil and ribbons, as if a magpie had designed it all. They carried bags that clinked and clanked as they moved, reminding Gilly of the bag ladies found in old movies. The children eyed her and the Doctor in both suspicion and fear.

"Ghosts," one of them muttered.

"We caught ourselves some ghosts," another concurred.

The Doctor laughed, "We're not ghosts! I'm the Doctor, and this is Glenda Hopkins."

"It's Gilly," she corrected in a resigned manner before waving. "Hi."

One kid warned, "The blue man should stay back from the ghost unless he wants to be taken."

"Stupid, he's a ghost too!"

"No, he isn't. He's not pale like her. _She's_ the ghost."

"But he's not one of the parents! They are… they _is_ ghosts."

"No, you were right the first time," the Doctor offered trying to be helpful. "The right auxiliary verb was 'are', as in 'we _are_ ghosts' or 'they _are_ ghosts—"

"He admits it!" One of them accused, pointing at the duo, causing the mob of children to chant the word 'ghosts' repeatedly. And from there, it only escalated, the mob circling the Doctor and Gilly, occasionally one of the pack moving forward as if to attack before the Doctor or Gilly rebuffed them by redirecting the weapon of choice or tripping the kid up. Leading them to have the conversation that the two of them were having earlier, the Doctor on the defensive.

"Well, it wasn't as if I was intending for them to take it as a confession," the Doctor snapped as he continued to keep his eyes on the armed children. He attempted to reason with them, "Ghosts? That's ridiculous. Surely, you can see right through that flimsy excuse. Get it? See through? Ghosts?"

Gilly groaned, "So not the time for awful jokes, Doctor. We're trying to _not_ get killed or maimed here."

"Well, I'm sure this lot can appreciate the idea of a couple of victims with a sense of humor."

She snorted, "Yeah, _right_, they sure look appreciative, Doctor. Why don't you tell them another, see what happens?" None of the children were laughing, smiling, or giving any indication that they had, in any sense of the word, 'appreciated' the Doctor's joke.

"Right," the Doctor sighed. "Everyone's a critic." He tried again. "Look, is there any way that we can prove that we're not ghosts?"

There was a pause before a kid that was out of Gilly's line-of-sight suggested, "Ghosts don't bleed. We could see if you two do."

"While they lack a sense of humor, they do seem to favor the scientific method," the Time Lord noted.

"Not helping, Doctor," the albino got out through gritted teeth as she fended off another would-be attacker.

"Right, right," the Doctor's mind worked furiously as he tried to find a way out of this particular situation. An idea occurred to him as he remembered Gilly's earlier question of whether or not the natives were hexadactyly inclined. "So, any of you have six-toes? Eh? You're not barefoot, all wearing nice shoes, look almost brand new…" He paused. "Actually, I've got trainers, look." The Doctor pointed at his own feet. "Teenagers love trainers, right? A bit big for you, but you can have them if you'll let us go… If this is a mugging, that is."

"A what?" One of the kids snapped, obviously irritated and confused with all the talking going on.

"If you're mugging me for my shoes," the Doctor clarified.

The same kid scoffed. "Why would we do that?"

"Don't you like my shoes?" The Doctor asked indignantly, feeling rather insulted by this.

Gilly let out a laugh at his expense before piping up, "Look, we're not ghosts, we're… the Ghostbusters." She felt the Doctor stiffen in surprise. "Yeah, we catch them. I'm the bait, see? I trick the ghosts and the Doctor zaps them. We're a couple of experts on them. Got a bit lost when we followed one here all the way from Brecon."

The children began to mutter to one another at this.

"They knows about the ghosts—"

"—who's Brecon? —"

"—bait, she's ghost bait—"

"—Ghost is tricksy, she's tricking other ghosts—"

"—can't be trusted—"

A loud whistle broke the silence and drew the Doctor, Gilly, and the group of six kids' attention to a stocky girl and a slouching boy. Silence reined as she spoke up in the sudden silence, "You say you know about the ghosts?"

"Er, yes, it's what we do. Stop trouble before it starts…" Gilly trailed off, losing her train of thought and unsure how to continue.

The Doctor picked up where she left off, "Basically, if you got a ghost problem, we're the ones to call. Ghosts, we can help with."

"They help ghosts!" One of the kids shouted in alarm.

"Uh, that's not quite what I—"

Another kid interrupted, "He's the Ghost Doctor and she's ghost bait."

"Wait, just — just wait," the Doctor tried, almost pleading for calm.

"What do the ghosts want now?" A boy asked, shifting his heavy pipe from one hand to another threateningly.

The stocky girl from before spoke up again, "They're not ghosts, he helps them and she tricks them." Clearly, this was not much of an improvement in the eyes of the other children and both of the time travelers were quick to realize this.

The Doctor made to say something else when a kid jabbed a finger, shouting, "Ghost bait summoned a ghost!" The duo turned to see what they had been so adamantly accused of being.

The ghost shimmered like a mirage, fuzzy details hard to make out, and roughly in the shape of a human, dressed in white robes. He, if it was indeed a he, almost looked like he was from Greece with the toga he was wearing. The ghost looked absolutely petrified with grief, fearful with despair as if he had lost everything that mattered and had no idea how to go on. The ghost stared despondently at them with reproachful, bitter eyes.

Something in Gilly shattered. She knew that look, had _worn_ that look for so long, for years until she had finally started to pick up the pieces, many having been lost never to be found again. That deep, agonizing loss where there was nothing left but the ashes of what once was, that final nail of the coffin hammered in, the empty coffin with no body. It had been the final breech in her defenses, her last stronghold against reality having been destroyed in the siege that was the funeral after many fruitless months of searching and searching… Missing and presumed to be dead, a grave with no body.

"I know," the Doctor said quietly, making Gilly tense as she slowly turned her head to face him. But he wasn't looking at her. No, he had been speaking to the ghost, a wraith with hollow eyes that looked at them so jealously, a fierce longing as it began to reach out for them. The Doctor reached forward, too, to bridge the gap. "I know," he whispered again soothingly, his voice hoarse with loss. "I know."

"Don't let it touch you!" A boy, the one who had been holding the metal pipe, screeched in warning. It had been his undoing, the ghost had turned to him and had only barely grazed him. The child disappeared, his screams of terror cut off. Gone without a trace.

"Frad, no!" Another cried out in despair, and Gilly could only watch, frozen where she stood. The ghost had already begun to fade away, its wispy form dissolving. It was looking at the grieving boy now, another target selected. The albino then realized what would happen next, the ghost would erase this one too from existence, leaving another empty grave and irreparably broken hearts.

"Leave him alone!" Gilly shrieked. "Don't you _dare_ take anyone else! You—!"

The ghost was distracted, facing her head on. The young woman found her words dying in her mouth, being choked and strangled in the throat. She couldn't stand it, the ghost. Couldn't stand to look at it with those dead-eyes gazing back at her. She was scared, those eyes resurfacing memories best left to be buried. Had she really looked like that once, too? Too horrifying for words. The gaze that would bring you down with it as it withered away into nothingness. The blank and desolate regard of the already dead, etched with resentment and condemnation for the living, promising them that they, too, will experience the ruin of utter loss without equal.

The ghost had dissipated, losing its form and disappearing into nothingness. But Glenda Hopkins could still see its stare burning into her mind's eye, vowing that she would return to the darkness eventually and wouldn't ever escape it again.

* * *

Gilly followed the Doctor's back unseeingly, the two of them headed towards the Fortress. She hadn't spoken once since their encounter with the ghost. The mob of children had long since scattered, leaving her and the Doctor in an empty alleyway. The Time Lord hadn't said much either, both shaken by the experience and the painful memories that the spirit's presence had triggered. He hadn't told his plans, nor had she known, until they had come across two of the kids from the group of children from before, the stocky girl and the slouching boy.

The Doctor had exchanged some words with them that Gilly hadn't paid much attention to until the Fortress had been mentioned, and a piece of the puzzle fell into place concerning the events from fifteen years ago. The stocky girl, Alsa, as she had introduced herself, explained that the Fortress had suddenly appeared one day with very little warning, destroying anything in the immediate vicinity while leaving 'half buildings' which used to be full buildings that happened to be right on the edge of the radius of destruction, half inside it and half out. Three days after its appearance, everything electronic had broken down and every living thing had disappeared from existence, erased as if it had never been.

The only thing that had escaped total erasure were the thirty-seven people who had been trapped underground in something similar to a subway. They had escaped to find themselves all alone, the last remnants of their people. These survivors were the 'parents'.

Something that the slouching kid, Gar, had asked struck Gilly, haunting her in its familiarity. "We did something wrong, didn't we? We was punished."

"You were punished alright," the Doctor murmured quietly, not bothering to correct the bad grammar this time. "But not for anything you did."

Alas eyed him speculatively. "Do you know what happened?"

"I know enough," he evaded. "I'm going to the Fortress, the source of all the trouble."

Gar scoffed, "You can't get inside, there's no doors, and if a person gets too close, they get zapped with lightning!"

"Bet they do, maybe you should follow your parents' advice and stay away. As for doors, well," the Doctor gave a secretive smile that he attempted to share with Gilly. It fell rather flat since she wasn't looking at him at all, only staring pensively out to their destination. He continued with a slight frown, "That hasn't stopped me before. There's always a way in if you know where to look."

Alsa continued to eye the two of them with an analytical gaze. It was almost too cold, too clinical and calculating for someone of her age, but this went unnoticed as Gar was used to it and the time travelers were too preoccupied at the moment. "Can I take you pictures with my comm?" She asked, bringing out the device that she had been using to report their presence to a parent earlier.

The Doctor was thrown off-guard by the non sequitur, "Um, yes, I s'pose. Glenda?"

He got a half-hearted shrug, which made the Doctor concerned as he didn't hear the correction that he had become accustomed to. Meanwhile, Alsa took the gesture as permission, making holograms of the both of them. The Doctor set aside his worry to deal with later while he finished the issue in front of them now. The Doctor watched her, posing with a fixed grin on his face the whole time, like one was wont to do when having their picture taken. "How does that run?" He asked through bared teeth. "I thought you said there wasn't any power."

"Batteries," came the simple reply. She was about to replace it, signifying that she was done, when the Doctor asked to see it, dropping the fixed grin that had been more than a little unsettling to look at. By this point, Gilly had begun to tune the three of them out and looked back to the ominous Fortress, wondering just what the Doctor thought he was going to do once he got there. He hadn't mentioned anything about this intention of his earlier, and she wondered if he ever was going to during their tour of Arcopolis or if this was something he had come up with while they were in the alleyway after the ghost had left.

Then the Doctor was grabbing her hand in his and dragging her away hurriedly from the two children he had just distracted, the comm he had borrowed firmly clenched in the other. After long moments of merely running and sneaking around, the Doctor finally let go of her hand and slowed down. Gilly panted from the exertion while the Doctor brought forth the whirling tube from before. They had been walking for close to a quarter of a mile with nothing but the warbling noise being emitted from the tube before Gilly finally spoke, "What is that?"

The Doctor looked back with a cheerful grin that masked his relief, "Finally, she speaks! Got me worried there for a mo."

"I tend to not feel like talking much after witnessing things like what we saw in that alley," she murmured back tiredly.

She didn't need to elaborate, the Doctor understood as he uneasily thought back to the ghost and his stirred memories of the dark times he had been in. Before Rose, after Rose, and after Donna Noble and his friends had left for good. He swallowed thickly. "Right," he said. "It's called a sonic screwdriver."

"Looks more like a laser pointer, only noisy and without a concentrated ray of light."

"Oi," he protested without any heat, unsure if he should be insulted or not. "It's brilliant, is what it is."

"I guess." She paused. "Why are we going to the Fortress?"

"It's a dangerous weapon that needs to be destroyed," he informed her gravely, all pretense of joviality gone as if a mask had been slipped off. "What had happened fifteen years ago… it could happen again unless I stopped it, and if it did go off again, there would truly be no one left."

"No one but the ghosts," Gilly agreed solemnly. "Do you think the Fortress is behind them?"

"I can't say," the Doctor told her, pursing his lips. "Normally, I would think them to be imprints, but after what we saw… _Well_, I can't be for sure anymore. Maybe it is, and if so, it's all the more reason to shut the weapon down before anyone else gets hurt."

No more words were shared as the two of them continued on their long trek towards the looming presence that the Fortress presented in the light of the dying sun as it set. They would be at the metal walls in close to a half an hour, if they continued at the same pace. The two of them were currently in what had either been a sewer main or a railway tunnel that had caved-in, leaving an unintentional aqueduct of fresh water in its place. Plants thrived there, reeds and moss growing along the banks that Doctor and Gilly were walking. The albino was thankful that, unlike her big brother Benny, she didn't have hay fever or was in any way allergic to pollen which was thick in the air. Everything was clean, having been cleansed from years and years of rainwater, everything having been washed away until there was nothing left but this river and the plants. Seeing this was a pleasant surprise and change from the rather grim atmosphere that the city above had been beginning to present. If only it hadn't been so muddy; Gilly had nearly lost a ballet flat twice.

The Doctor, who was still leading the way, suddenly stopped under an archway and pressed against the wall before motioning for her to do the same. She sidled up beside the Time Lord as he began to creep closer to the corner to peer around it. "What is it?" Gilly breathed in a voice so quiet that she could barely hear herself.

Somehow, the Doctor had heard her. He answered, his voice a quiet murmur, but louder than her words had been, "The Fortress is right around this bend… Snuck up on me." Carefully, slowly, he peered around from behind the shelter the archway provided, getting a very clear view. The collapsed buildings helped to form something of a basin where water had built up and collected over the years until it had formed a giant lake. One side of the Fortress was protected by the lake, while the rest was embedded into a huge, curved building made of an immaculately white material that caused the Fortress to stand out starkly from it.

The Doctor had extremely good eyesight as a Time Lord and had been able to make out things that Gilly hadn't back at the apartment. Now that he was up close and personal to the Fortress, he could make it out clearly. What Gilly had perceived to be spikes and sharp angles, were actually buttresses, ramparts, and watchtowers. Plates of metal had been haphazardly bolted onto the sides as if to reinforce the intimidating structure, doing little to assist in its appearance, which was decidedly unsightly and menacing.

With the lake being something like a moat, the Doctor found himself stymied for a way to access the Fortress. He hadn't exactly thought to bring a canoe with him, and he wasn't completely sure if he would have been able to fit so much as an oar in his transdimensional pockets… As he searched for another access point, something caught his eye.

It looked like glass, standing there in the middle of the lake. It appeared rather ghostly with his transparent and vague shape, like a pencil drawing by Alex Kanevsky come to life. Despite it looking like a statue with how still it stood in the middle of the lake, the Doctor had a feeling that it was, in fact, alive. Ghost-like though it was, it didn't look much like the ghost in the alley.

"Two types of ghost?" The Doctor muttered to himself, vaguely noticing that his words made Gilly stiffen next to him. _She's definitely not going to like this_, the Doctor mused to himself before waving his arms like a lunatic, trying to get its attention. "Oi! You there! Hello, I'm the Doctor!" He bellowed, his voice echoing quite fantastically across the water along with his companion's horrified cry of 'Doctor!'

Of course, what happened next wasn't much of a surprise to him. There was an extremely good reason why he had lived to be sixteen hundred odd centuries, give or take a few decades here and there, as he had lost track some time ago: he was always half-expecting to be shot at whenever he showed his face in decidedly-hostile territory. So when he caught the first glimpse of a bolt of blue energy streaking towards him out of the corner of his eye, he reacted instantly. Whirling around, he tackled Gilly to the ground, covering her with his body and bracing himself as the energy bolt hit.

He could feel the heat, and the wall was still ringing from the force of the blast. The attempt to shatter the archway had failed, but it had been a close call. He wondered if the glass man or one of the turrets from the Fortress, which he had spotted earlier, had fired at him. There was screaming and shouting back the way he and Gilly had come from, the Doctor realized. The shrieks belong to children… Alsa and Gar had followed them.

* * *

**A/N: Wow, I actually updated within the second day of another update... Don't expect this to happen often, I just had a lot of time on my hands. Plus, I tend to do short chapters, which tend to do quicker updates anyway. **

**This chapter and the last one were unbeta'd. Emptyvoices's dad is in the hospital. Pray for him, yeah?**

**Alex Kanevsky is... an interesting artist to say the least. In the book, the comparison used was Antony Gormley's statues, but I'm attempting to not get everything straight from the book. The same will apply to the episodes, I'll attempt not to take everything from the script.**

**And yes, it appears that I had added some angst to Glenda's past. However, much like the Doctor, she tends to bury her past and move on, so it will be slow in being revealed. As I said before, I always leave hints, one of which was planted about two chapters ago.**

**As always, I want to know what my readers think. Doesn't really matter if it's in a PM or a review, but reviews are always less effort. And even if you don't have an account, you can do it. Just start typing in the space below the author's note...**

**And, yes. Yes, I am being passive-aggressive about asking you to leave a review. If you want, you can complain about it in a review. Or PM. Whichever. We can engage in a lengthy discussion about my attitude problems and everything, I won't mind.**


	6. A Complete Disorientation

_"Culture Shock" is an encounter with different cultures that challenge one's taken-for-granted assumptions about the way things are and ought to be, a complete disorientation._

-The Practical Skeptic (6th Edition), Lisa J. McIntyre (2013).

* * *

The Doctor leapt off his position from on top of his companion and raced back the way the two of them had come earlier towards the screams. Gilly, meanwhile, settled for removing her face from the mud and wiping it off at best as she could. Her camera, which she had been carrying with her all this time, had managed to escape being utterly destroyed by her and the Doctor's collective weight by flying off from around her neck and landing on a particularly soft mound of wet dirt. Unfortunately, it had not escaped the mud and was utterly filthy. The disgruntled albino slogged out of said mud just as the screaming stopped and the Doctor's voice could be heard shout in warning, "No, stop!"

She looked up to see Alsa powering towards her direction… towards the open space where the Fortress would have a clean shot at the stocky girl. Unthinkingly, Gilly planted herself between the girl and the opening. The albino had forgotten about the law of momentum conservation by Sir Isaac Newton from the courses she had taken so long ago, almost fifteen years prior. So it was a large surprise to her when she heavily rebounded from the force of impact, being sent flying back beyond the cover and the safety of the archway, while Alsa stumbled and fell on her butt.

The Doctor had chased after Alsa to stop her from getting herself unintentionally killed and was already in mid-leap, when the two girls had exchanged momentum. Thinking quickly, he adjusted for this while still in the air like a cat. Rugby tackling Gilly to the ground, the two of them rolled into the edge of the lake, its chilly waters slapping them in the face. A blue energy beam arced overhead and slammed into a metal structure a few feet away, the sound reverberating.

Gilly trembled, her heart pounding furiously from the near death experience. Voice wobbling, she said, "You… You ruined my only outfit, you owe me another after we get out of this alive."

The Doctor stared. He snorted. And broke out laughing, his shoulders shaking from the effort to remain still. "Done and done," he finally managed after a long moment of choked snickering from the tongue-in-cheek comment. "We can go to Spaceport One at Dorfnan City."

"Dorkman City, sounds great. Now, any ideas for _getting out alive_?" The Doctor didn't bother correcting her, instead he released Gilly and the two of them inched further back so that they were more fully protected by the low hanging brick wall that was mostly submerged in the muddy bank by the water's edge. He glanced back to see that both Gar and Alsa were back under the archway, safe. He told them to stay where they were.

"Were the ghosts following you?" Gar asked, voice quivering in fear despite his best attempts to hide it.

"No," the Doctor and Gilly replied at the same time.

Gilly continued, "But it appears that you two were. Don't you know this is dangerous enough as it—" She was cut off by the Doctor poking his head over the wall only to bring it back down very quickly as blue ray whizzed past. "You idiot, don't do that! Do you _want_ to be killed?!"

He had the sense to look abashed while Alsa moaned, "No one survives this. We shouldn't be here. No one comes here and lives."

"That's about to change starting now," the Doctor assured the distraught girl before he turned to the albino and asked, "Do you trust me?" She gave him a flat look. He pressed, "Glenda Hopkins, _do you trust me_?"

She sighed, "Last time I did, you saved my life. Since you somehow got it in peril again, _yes_, I trust you to get me back out of this alive… Assuming you don't get your head shot clean off."

"Right, good, brilliant," the Doctor gave her a boyish grin that made her roll her eyes.

"Heaven help us," she muttered. "I'm stuck with a lunatic."

The Doctor tactfully ignored that comment, thinking quickly as he tried to make sense of what information that he had learned. "The Fortress is able to defend itself automatically. It was built for war, designed to function even after a massive assault… even after all the people manning it have long since died. The… lightning, as you called it, Gar, is really just your garden variety of energy beam. Motion sensitive, unfortunately for Glenda and I. Likely, no, _absolutely_, there will be more turrets lined along the wall at regular intervals… I strongly suspect for these so called 'ghosts' to be another defense mechanism. No one wants to go anywhere haunted, so the Fortress is projecting scary images to keep everyone away. Kills you if you get too close or stay around too long. That's all the ghosts are: holograms."

Gilly had a gut feeling that it couldn't be that simple. She had seen holograms before, and they looked nothing like the ghost in the alley. But who was to say that in the future they couldn't be more sophisticated? Especially when it came to the creators of the Fortress. Realizing this, Gilly kept her reservations to herself.

"So, you do this all the time?" Alsa asked.

"Oh, yes, fight monsters, right wrongs… go boldly where no one has gone before…" The Doctor smirked at his companion as if to share an inside joke, but Gilly only stared at him blankly. He sighed in disappointment before turning back to the task at hand, deciding that it was time to risk it. Very slowly, he made to stand up.

"Doctor!" Gilly yelped, grabbing at his lapels to pull him back down.

"It's fine," he assured her. "There's a trick to it. Was just a tick too fast last time. It's motion sensitive, like I said, following a set of instructions. It's only programmed to fire at things moving above a certain speed. Trust me." Carefully, the ex-mortician stood up and, keeping her eyes on the Doctor and her feet, began inching over towards safety where Gar and Alsa were watching anxiously. The Time Lord spent the time taking in all the surroundings, hoping to find the Glass man again to no avail. He also studied the Fortress in greater detail, spotting the turret that had been causing everyone so much trouble in the first place. He scowled at it. "Don't give into the temptation to run the last bit," he warned Gilly as much as himself.

Gilly scoffed nervously but said nothing. Two steps, three steps, more, and finally the two time travelers were safely under the archway. As his companion sank gratefully to the floor for a minute to recover from the high stakes situation that she had just participated in, the Doctor went further down the tunnel to check for ghosts before giving the all-clear.

"You're coming with us," Alsa declared, her eyes oscillating between the two adults as she endeavored to stare them down in an intimidating manner.

"And just where are you taking us?" The Doctor asked, entertaining the question.

"Back to the parents," came the answer, said in such way that it would have brooked no argument if it had come from someone other than Alsa.

The Doctor considered it for all of two seconds, biting the inside of his cheek. "I really have to get into that Fortress."

"We won't be able to go through this side," Gilly noted, as she reached over and picked up her muddy camera, attempting to clean it but failing. "We'll probably have to go the long way around and see if we can get in through that white building there. More cover to hide behind if the Fortress gets nasty when we enter it."

"You can get inside?" The slouching boy asked with a hint of disbelief.

The Doctor sighed, but his expression was one of enduring patience. "Yes, we've been through this before, Gar. A lack of a door is hardly a deterrent for me."

"What's a de-tur-rant?"

"Never mind that, Gar. The real question is what's he going to do when he's inside it," Alsa told her friend before looking up at the Time Lord in a challenging manner. "Well?"

"There's a weapon in there. A terrible, terrible weapon. Far worse than the ray gun. It's a weapon that's— here's a phrase that's over used, but not by me — _infinitely more powerful_. That weapon is what made everyone and all the animals disappear fifteen years ago… Go back home to your parents, show them you're safe. By tomorrow morning, Glenda and I will be gone, and the Fortress won't be a threat to anyone any longer. We're going in there and will destroy the weapon once and for all… Then we'll go. Like we were never even here in the first place."

Neither Gilly nor the Doctor had been paying attention, too busy looking at the daunting image that the Fortress impressed against the too-dark sky. This planet didn't have a moon, only stars, yet it was bright enough to make the Fortress appear to be looming like a dark mountain. And when Gilly turned to look back at the Doctor, perhaps to make another attempt at witticism, it was too late to warn him.

Alsa brought down the chunk of a concrete block hard on the side of the Doctor's head, making his knees buckle before he slashed helplessly into muddy ground, out cold. "No," she avowed defiantly before turning to face Gilly, raising the block again. Too late to run, Gar had a strong grip on her, she wouldn't be able to fight them both off. She was a wimp. The ex-mortician thought fast.

"You won't be able to carry the two of us back by yourselves, I can attest to the fact that he's extremely heavy for someone as skinny as he is. Not to mention that I can't go anywhere without the Doctor… Especially when two little psychos are holding him hostage…" The words tumbled out as fast as she could think of them, fortunately, they appeared to be the right ones. Alsa dropped the brick and Gar let Gilly go. "I'll get the arms, I don't exact trust the two of you not to drop him on his head. Trust me, his brain is damaged enough as it is, especially after you beat on it with a brick."

* * *

It took them a considerable amount of time to get back to the compound, and they had only managed to make it here as soon as they did, because they found a wheelbarrow to cart the Doctor around in — after everything was said and done, Gilly promised herself that she would never let the Time Lord live it down. As it was, there were very few people awake at the time, making the process of getting to a certain "Professor Jeffip" that much easier.

The compound was in the heart of the city in a large, flat expanse of parkland. There were close to a dozen structures of varying sizes made out of metal scaffolding and sheets of polythene. Scattered around were scores of tents in between and around the outskirts of the buildings. The pathways throughout the settlement were adorned in tickertape, paper lanterns, and sculptures made from metal pieces and bits of dead robot. There was a comm mast in the middle of the settlement like a giant totem pole. Faintly, Gilly could hear the sound of a fast-flowing river somewhere nearby and the steady creak of a large waterwheel.

Alsa and Gar led her up to one structure that seemed to be one of the bigger buildings. Alsa sent Gar inside to get the good Professor while she led Gilly and the unconscious Doctor further around the outside to another entrance. The two of them grabbed an arm and dragged the Doctor inside down several halls to an infirmary. Well, part infirmary, part laboratory, and part mechanic shop, if the surroundings were any indication.

The room was large with walls that were made out of a translucent plastic. Cabinets lined them, full with both glass and plastic bottles. There were also various tools and scientific instruments placed upon the countertops. On the far side of the room, there were two work tables with industrial tools strewn on top. Large packing crates were scattered around the floor, filled with scrolls, posters, and other rolled-up paper products. Along one wall, there were five sturdy-looking beds. As Gilly took this in, she was faintly reminded of her workplace with several obvious differences, like exchanging the beds for metal examination tables…

"Do you have something we can change him into?" The ex-mortician asked the stocky girl who looked at her cock-eyed. Gilly elaborated, "In case you haven't notice, he's absolutely covered in mud. I'm sure you wouldn't want to wash that out of the sheets, would you?" Alsa nodded thoughtfully and dropped the Doctor's arm, making Gilly scramble to readjust her grip so the Time Lord didn't get dropped on his head. The albino gave the young teen a dirty look, which went unnoticed, as Alsa brought out some spare pajama bottoms out of one of the cabinets. It was obviously made for someone with a larger build than the Doctor, but it was better than nothing at all. "Right, thank you," Gilly murmured absently as she eased the unconscious man on the floor.

Alsa watched with wide eyes as Gilly eased the Doctor out of his overcoat, suit jacket, tie, and shirt in a business-like fashion. The ex-mortician took off his shoes and made to take off the belt when the girl finally spoke up, "You're going to do that _here_?"

Gilly startled, looking at Alsa blankly. "What?" The girl gestured to the Doctor in an embarrassed fashion. "Oh… Yes, I am. This would be the place to do it… unless you want to drag him around some more. And, anyway, he likely hasn't got anything I haven't seen before. I've had to examine and dress cadavers as a job, this isn't that much different. It's not like I'm actually paying any attention to his body." Gilly turned back to the task at hand before absently ordering, "Look away if you are uncomfortable, Alsa."

The girl did just that as the albino changed the Doctor into clean bottoms. There was a moment of silence before Alsa asked, "What's a cadaver?"

"A dead body," came the blunt answer. "I'm what you would call a mortician. I fix the body if there are any faults, embalm it, and prepare it for the final viewing and burial, among other things. But usually Greg is there to help me out. He mostly handles the publicity aspect, since I tend to… unsettle people who are already upset enough as it is." She paused. "You can turn around now. Help me lift him, would you?" Between the two of them, they managed to lift the Doctor onto the bed. "Alright, do you have any disinfectant or alcohol? Also, bandages… Thank you."

By the time Professor Jeffip and Gar entered the room, most of the work was already finished. The elderly man gave a start when he first caught sight of Gilly's shock-white hair and pale countenance, but he was quick to recover. Gar's description, while embellished, didn't quite prepare Gilly for the man in front of her. He appeared to be in his later sixties with features that vaguely reminded Gilly of a bird of prey. It certainly didn't help with his eyes, one a pale blue and the other a rusty brown. His choice of hairstyle seemed mismatched, looking like something that would belong to an ageing lion with a mane of hair streaked in grey that started as a quaff before it went down to his mid-back.

He raised his left hand up in greeting which the albino mimicked awkwardly. "Ah, thank you for your hospitality," Gilly said. _Although I wasn't given much of a choice with the Doctor being held hostage by the psycho-children_, she thought privately to herself. She adjusted her dirty glassed that were still splattered with mud. She felt that she must have made quite a sight, as utterly filthy as she was from all the times she had been tackled into the muddy ground.

"Yes, it would only be natural… We don't often have visitors." He appeared to study her and the Time Lord laying on the bed. "Gar mentioned a Doctor, that would be you, I assume?"

"No, I'm a mortician, he's the Doctor. But I know enough anatomy and took a first aid course, so he likely won't be in any danger any time soon. No concussion, surprisingly." The last sentence was said with a discrete glance in Alsa's direction.

"What brings the both of you here?"

"Originally, I thought it was sight-seeing, but now the Doctor decided to reveal that he's going to deactivate the Fortress so it's not a threat anymore. He suspects that doing that will get rid of the ghosts. We didn't plan on coming to your settlement, but Alsa had other ideas."

"Where are you from, if I may ask?" Jeffip was looking at her shrewdly, and Gilly knew for certain that even she would not be able to lie to him.

"Not from this place," she admitted. "But a planet called Earth, over a hundred thousand light-years away."

"So you are an alien then?" Jeffip asked curiously, raising his bushy eyebrows.

Gilly's first instinct was to deny this, for _they _were the aliens, not her. A second's consideration, though, led her to realize that, _no_, in this case, _she_ was the alien. On their planet, _she_ was the alien visitor. Gilly likened it to the realization of a tourist not considering himself a foreigner when visiting another country but instead seeing the _natives_ as foreigners. "Yes, although, it is strange to say so… We come in peace." No one laughed. The Doctor was unconscious, the two kids didn't understand the joke, and Jeffip either didn't feel like dignifying it with a response or also didn't get the joke.

Instead the older man nodded wisely and said, "I had suspected as much, as I have never seen a person with your shade of complexion. Forgive me for saying so, but it appears almost unnatural. Tell me, when you and your mate came to Arcopolis, did you have trouble in adopting our form? He seems closer suited to it."

"_Adopting your_… No, we naturally look like this. Well, he does. I'm an albino. I've got a rare genetic condition that inhibits the production of melanin, causing a lack of pigment in my hair, skin, and eyes. That's why I have to wear these glasses, my vision is impaired. And it's also why I'm so covered up, even in this weather, my skin burns easily in the sun… Are you telling me you've never seen an albino before?"

"No, this is the first time I've even heard of the term."

Gilly rubbed the bridge of her nose, muttering under her breath, "Now_ this_ is culture shock."

Conversation dwindled after that, as both children started yawning and passing it on to the adults contagiously. "We can continue this tomorrow," Jeffip offered, but Gilly had a feeling that it wasn't exactly a suggestion despite it being posed as one. She nodded tiredly in agreement, moving to pick up the Doctor's clothes. The Professor stopped her. "Oh, no, that's all right, you can leave that here for now. They will be taken care of in the morning. For now, follow Alsa, she'll take you to one of the spare tents to sleep tonight and will see to it that you are able to clean yourself of the mud."

"You are very generous with your guests, Professor Jeffip," Gilly noted.

The old man smiled. "It has always been the custom of our people." There, they split ways.

Gilly followed Alsa to the river that had been distantly heard earlier. The water was cold and a shock to the older woman's system with the sudden contrast to the warm night air. The teen had left Gilly to bathe while she went and found spare clothes for the albino to change into. Gilly had used the time to rid herself completely of mud and also cleaned off her glasses and the camera as best as she could manage. When Alsa came back, the albino was given an outfit similar to a sari that was olive green in color, patched and mended in various locations. "It's the smallest I could find," Alsa muttered defensively when the sari-like outfit sagged in odd places, glaring at Gilly as if she could control how her body portioned itself.

The albino didn't rise to the bait to the teen's disappointment. Gilly noted that Alsa seemed to be mad about a lot of things, angry at the world in response to the feelings of powerlessness within her. The older woman could sympathize but said nothing in that regard, knowing from experience that it was the last thing that was wanted or needed at the moment. So, it was without comment that she allowed herself to be led to a tiny tent where a make-shift hammock was installed. Swallowing down any reservations about the seemingly impractical resting place, Gilly got inside the hammock after a brief struggle and fell into an uneasy, but deep, sleep.

* * *

**A/N: The next chapter is where we'll see a bit more about the culture for the survivors of Arcopolis. The chapter after that will be when all the action takes place... But from Gilly's point of view. As it is, I'm attempting to keep it real to cannon without taking every thing straight from the books or scripts. **

**Also, I need to think of this realistically, if Gilly was in a certain spot at a certain time, she's liable to be killed, and we can't have that. So, the action you see two chapters from now will be different from the action in the book, in the sense that Gilly won't be with the Doctor... He barely got out alive himself, and he has a physiology superior to humans, let alone Gilly. But I will be sure to keep the lot of you on your toes.**

**Many thanks to Emptyvoices who has Beta'd the entirety of this story and has corrected the previous two chapters. There's no significant changes other than spelling and grammar. (Thank you, shadowcaster01, for pointing out the one I missed earlier!)**

**Your reviews were much appreciated. And I wouldn't complain if you continued to shower praises or poke holes in my story. I won't bite. Much.**


	7. Vaguely Conscious

_The last thing which a dweller in the deep sea would be likely to discover would be water. He would be conscious of its existence only if some accident brought him to the surface and introduced him to air. Man, throughout most of his history, has been only vaguely conscious of the existence of culture and has owed even this consciousness to the contrast between the customs of his own society and those of some other which he happened to be brought into contact._

\- Culture and Personality, Ralph Linton (1945).

* * *

When Glenda Hopkins woke up, it was mid-morning and she had a horrendous migraine. The right side of her head seemed to be almost pulsing in time to each throb, it was so severe. It left her feeling fatigued, despite the fact that she had slept for nearly nine hours. Getting out of the hammock now seemed like a more insurmountable task than getting inside it, but it had to be done. With a stiff body — _hammocks like the one she had slept in were not the best_ — she hobbled out of the tent, attempting to stretch the tautness out of her limbs.

The community was awake by this point and had been for quite some time. A bulk of the people there were children, most below the age of ten. On occasion, Gilly would see an adult or young teenager, but they would disappear from her sight within the next second, busy with their duties. Those who lingered, the children, stared and maintained a wide berth. A few were curious but a majority were fearful, slipping off to tell a parent.

Walking seemed to make her headache worse as well as make her feel nauseated. Squinting, Gilly attempted to find her way back to the building she had left the Doctor in and wandered in the direction where she thought it was. Unfortunately, she was disorientated and went in the opposite direction, to the river. Not far from the waters on a long picnic table, were a large pack of children and three women: a blonde, brunette, and a red head. If Gilly's head hadn't been bothering her as much as it was, she might have had a humorous thought about it being a joke come to life.

The blonde spotted the albino first and gestured for her to come over. "You must be one of the visitors Alsa and Gar found. Jeffip told us earlier this morning during the first meal. I'm Dela."

"I am Lorelai," the brunette greeted.

The ginger, distractedly wiping off the face of a child, murmured, "Jolene."

"Call me Gilly, don't let the Doctor try to convince you otherwise," the ex-mortician got out, wincing. Even just talking seemed to make the throbbing worse. She sat at the table, clutching at the point of origin with her right hand.

Lorelai asked, "Are you in pain?"

Gilly started to nod glumly before groaning at the motion and hissing out through gritted teeth, "Yes. Migraine, I think. Ow."

"Did you get into the fruit wine?" Jolene questioned airily. "It goes down smooth but always attacks with a vengeance the next day."

"I don't drink, especially not moonshine," came the flat answer. "I probably didn't sleep right. Going to sleep with wet hair likely didn't help, either."

"That's stupid," a child piped up. "You get _sick_, blargh!" He made a series of high-pitched renditions of retching.

"No!" Another argued. "You only do that when you're a parent if you're having a baby."

"She's not a parent," the first denied.

"Is too," the second countered shrilly.

A third joined in scornfully, "Is not, Mum said she's a vis-tur."

Gilly said nothing in her defense, only laid her head down on the cool wood and covered her pulsing, throbbing skull with her arms. It was all an attempt to block out the childish arguing that was like stabs to her brain… Even though the brain lacked any nerves that had pain receptors in the first place, Gilly swore the pain intensified the longer she remained outside. If standing up and walking didn't make everything ten times worse, Gilly would have attempted to find somewhere else to wait out the migraine. As it was, she was trapped here with the three mothers and their seventeen children until further notice. She cringed at the thought before letting out a small cough.

* * *

When the Doctor entered Professor Jeffip's office, he had to bite back a mild explicative. Not usually the one to curse, it had taken some effort to keep it nonverbal for the sake of the child in the room, when he was actually upset enough to swear. The girl who had led him to the office from the infirmary gave him an odd look for the muffled choking sound he made before she exited. The Professor looked up from the sonic screwdriver he dissected in askance.

"Be _careful_ with that," the Doctor finally managed to get out, cuss-free. "You have _no idea_ what—"

Jeffip interrupted, completely unconcerned, "It's a sonic tool, and I was merely examining its acoustic accelerators. No need to fret…" He toyed with the casing in his hand before taking of the jeweler's eyepiece he wore. "We used to have devices like this, but the size of a room." The Doctor felt moderately embarrassed by this but hid it well as he took his cleaned shirt from a hanger in the room. It was still a bit damp but the Time Lord paid this no mind.

"Your scientific credentials are certainly impressive, Doctor." Jeffip offered, referring to the psychic paper. "I had assumed that you were a Doctor of medicine, not one of science, from what your mate inferred."

"Glenda?" The Doctor asked, frowning as he got a nagging sensation that he had forgotten something extremely important as he buttoned his shirt. "We're not exactly friends yet. She's just a companion, not by choice but necessity… I had thought that I never would again, promised myself that after what had happened last time, but things change."

"I understand," the old man said gravely, not really understanding at all, having misinterpreted what the Doctor had said, just as the Time Lord had misinterpreted what Jeffip had said. "Circumstances make unwilling participants of us all. But we have to make do."

The Doctor wasn't paying attention, frowning as he tried to work out what he had forgotten. His head throbbed from where he had been bludgeoned with half a brick. Wincing, he brought a hand to his bandaged head, thinking it to be the cause of his absentmindedness. "Alsa can be very stubborn, will not take 'no' for an answer if she can help it. She, Gar, and your… companion brought you here."

"She's a smart child," the Doctor remarked neutrally as he took his suit jacket down from another hanger. Privately, he thought to himself, _And vicious!_

"Yes, one of mine, I think. She's bright and aggressive, not an appealing combination."

"No…" The Doctor muttered as he took his damp suit jacket back off and returning it back to the hanger. He would have to wait for it to dry. He thought over what had been said previously. "How did they manage to bring me here? Glenda isn't strong enough to carry me, even if she did have help," the Time Lord pointed out.

"By wheelbarrow, they brought you a long way. The children, I believe, are still resting. Glenda is awake, if the amount of worried children who have appeared in my office within the last hour were any indicator."

"Did they? Did they? A wheelbarrow, imagine that," the Doctor whistled as he stopped next to the desk and discretely glanced at a tray that held everything from his many pockets. Besides his sonic screwdriver that was clamped into a vise with its casing removed, there was his psychic paper, a ball of string, his pocket Gallifreyan-Cymraeg phrasebook, a bag of kola nuts, a yo-yo, his collection of coins from a dozen different planets, the everlasting matches, the TARDIS key, a teaspoon, and everything else of his. But one thing caught his eye, reminding him starkly of what he had forgotten. It was a transparent bottle of anti-radiation pills marked aɬʒonpoɾnow gɛɾos ɛθldɑɹɪ.

This time, he actually did curse, making Professor Jeffip gaze at him disapprovingly. "Oh, I'm so _thick_! I had completely forgotten. Glenda needs her medication, _now_." Snatching the pill bottle, he ran out the door. Jeffip grabbed his walking stick that had been fashioned from a piece of aluminum pole. As the old man stood up from his chair, the Doctor burst back in the office, looking frantic. "Do you know where she is? Where did they last see her?"

"By the river with the other women. I will take you." The pace Jeffip set was much, much slower than the Doctor would have liked and he was tense with agitation. The Professor attempted to hold some conversation, but the Doctor wasn't in the mood for small talk, his answers short and blunt. "Glenda had confessed that the both of you are aliens. She mentioned a place called Earth…" He didn't get an answer, the Doctor was too busy looking around for a collapsed albino. Jeffip tried again, "We always knew that there must be extraterrestrial civilizations, but we had never encountered any, not until the Fortress and, now, the both of you. I have many questions, of course."

The Doctor wasn't interested, his reply was curt, "I'm sure you do." In the distant, if he really strained his hearing, the Doctor could detect the sound of running water. Without further remark or comment, he took off running, using the sound to guide him. Jeffip let out a sigh but didn't protest the sudden departure. Jeffip couldn't hear the water himself, but the fact that the Doctor appeared to know where he was going, had the Professor conclude that the Time Lord could.

The Doctor had spotted Gilly almost immediately, slumped over the table and covering her head. He put on an extra burst of speed and skidded to a halt beside her. "Glenda? Glenda! Can you hear me?"

"…Stop… shouting… head hurts…" Came the weak response, an eye wearily opened to glare at him before she winced and closed it tightly.

"I need you to stay with me and take this." The Doctor supported the limp woman as he popped open the bottle with one hand, explaining urgently, "It's been over twenty-seven hours by now, the medication's worn off. You need a dose _now_."

Gilly groaned, "Can't… gonna throw up…"

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I should have been more careful. It's my fault, but you need to take this!" Taking a nearby cup filled with cool water that the women had been trying to coax Gilly to drink earlier, he stuffed a pill in her mouth and cajoled her to drink the water. The ex-mortician shuddered, her countenance, which had already been a deathly pale, turned a whiter and sicker shade. "Head between the knees, deep breaths… There you go, that's it… I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

She gasped, "You and me both." Gilly maintained her upright fetal position for several long minutes before gradually easing out of it, looking worse for wear but no longer as if she would keel over in the throes of death. "Next time, I should have some on me… Just in case."

"No, it's my fault, I need to be more care—"

Gilly interrupted, "Yeah, I'm the kind of person who blames an _unconscious_ man for being unable to do anything. Not likely. Let's call ourselves even. Failing to stop you from getting your brains scrambled kind of led to this situation in the first place. Best thing to do is to prevent it from happening again, so take note: no more underestimating feral children."

The Doctor huffed out a half-hearted laugh, "Note taken. Also, in the spirit of hindsight, I'll make sure you have a small emergency supply of your own when we get back to the TARDIS. This won't happen again if I can help it."

The ex-mortician nodded wearily, rubbing her neck which was beginning to ache. "You'll be hearing no complaint from me on that front," she murmured. "Some pain pills wouldn't be remiss, either."

"Any pain you're feeling should be gone in a moment or two," the Doctor assured her. "The medication needs a chance to completely take hold first." Gilly nodded slowly, trying not to make any sudden moments in the hopes to avoid making her gradually fading headache worse. The last thing she wanted was a rebound or a flare up.

At this point, a new voice made itself known, "Ah, so you are a doctor in more than just a title." A woman who looked just as old as Jeffip appeared, walking with the professor. Clearly in her sixties, she smoothed her thinning, grey hair. She had an almost scholarly air about herself as she eyed the two of them, her gaze sharp and assessing. Then she smiled and raised her left hand in greeting. "Welcome to New Acropolis. I am Jennver, leader of the Council."

"She is also our only remain obstetrician," Jeffip added. "What a happy coincidence, we now have someone to help with birth, maintenance of health, and eventual death. The cycle of life."

"Yes, fancy that," the Doctor grimaced. "But I'm not really that kind of doctor. I dabble. Bit of this and that, more that than this, I think." His explanation was purposely vague, an attempt to distract the two elders of New Acropolis. He didn't really enjoy the line of thought that Jeffip's words inspired, a sort of permanence.

"Alsa told me about the two of you last night. Her holograms were surprisingly unflattering."

"Aw, she just didn't get our good side," the Time Lord joked. "Although, considering she took a three-dimensional images that covers every possible side, that's just unforgiveable."

"More like you aren't terribly photogenic, Doctor," Gilly jabbed. "I have the feeling if given the choice, you'd rather not appear in any lasting images."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he demurred smoothly, eyes taking in his surroundings, namely the cloud of kids surrounding the three young mothers. He changed the subject, "All this children… They vastly outnumber you, bet around ten to one, easily."

"We all understand our duties." Jennver's expression was a politely blank mask. "There is no other choice. The —"

"— The women have to have lots of babies, but the boys don't really matter and are open game to be eaten by ghosts. Repopulation's the number one concern, innit? Either way, none of them need to learn how to read or do maths, do they?" The Doctor interrupted, a deceptively warm smile on his face. His eyes, however, were cold.

The old woman bristled but maintained a strained politeness, "As I said, with the circumstances we don't have much of a choice. In a single moment, we were left with only thirteen women of childbearing age. Everyone, and I mean _everyone_, lost their rights when that happened. We'll never have the life we used to lead ever again, not in this lifetime nor the next or the one after. With this way of life, we have established a functioning society by adhering to a clan structure. We now have 148 girls and women. The eldest of the girls are almost adults and will be able to have children of their own. The pressure of responsibility with decrease with each generation."

Jeffip quickly added, "I have calculated that an average of ten children would suffice, and then six for the next generation after. We can't expanded beyond the settlement's ability to feed itself, of course."

"Of course," the Doctor echoed.

Gilly frowned but said nothing.

* * *

It was late afternoon, and much had happened throughout the day before Gilly came to the breaking point.

After the leftover aches had dissipated and both herself and the Doctor had gotten something to eat, the Time Lord left with Jeffip and Jennver, giving Gilly the stern order to rest. The albino had easily agreed with the retort that he stay out of trouble. The Doctor didn't dignify her with a response. As soon as the children were taken care of and both Lorelai and Jolene had agreed to babysit for the blonde, Dela took it upon herself to be Gilly's guide.

Gilly estimated that the survivors had been reduced to a pre-Industrial Revolution stage of society, this thought being given credence when she spotted the fields with various crops. Dela excused herself to talk with Jennver and the albino contented herself with the company of the working children. After a brief hesitation, more on the children's part than her own, Gilly joined in on the harvest, being eagerly dictated on what and what not to pick. She thought that blue was a weird color for a fruit that looked like strawberries. A sample revealed that it contained a savory flavor, reminiscent of tomatoes that had the same umami component that gave that brothy, meaty taste. Gilly ate another on the sly.

Eventually, the Doctor made his own way over to the fields, sending a disapproving look in her direction. It was obvious that working in the fields had not been under his list of actions that equated to resting, even if she was only harvesting fruit. She offering of a savory blue strawberry did little to distract him. Jennver did a much better job, her voice cutting off whatever lecture that the Doctor had been about to deliver to Gilly. "You had known about the Fortress before you had arrived, but were you also aware that Acropolis had been destroyed?"

"Yes," came the answer, swift and to the point.

Dela spoke up, her calm and just as direct, "Did you know that there were survivors?"

"No," the Doctor admitted, expression shifting slightly before it rested on neutrality.

"But now that you know, you must have new plans," Jennver prodded.

Now the Doctor looked just as confused as Gilly felt through this discussion. "Er, I s'pose… What do you mean exactly?"

"The both of you would be invaluable here," Dela attempted. "Your ability to fix comms and medical knowledge, among other things." In the second half of the last sentence, the blonde had glance briefly at Gilly, making the ex-mortician uncomfortable.

_Please don't tell me she was implying what I thought she was implying_, Gilly despaired silently to herself. _It colors everything that she showed and told me in the past two hours in a light that just makes everything creepy._

The Doctor, meanwhile, floundered as he was essentially being put on the spot. He couldn't flat out refuse to offer his services, especially not since his and Gilly's host had been so gracious to them both thus far. It would unspeakably rude, and while the Doctor wasn't always the most polite person around, this was a line he wouldn't cross, unintentionally or otherwise. "I am happy to help out," he offered diplomatically. "I'm up for odd jobs, tinkering, fixing up, anything within reason. Nothing that changes too much, since I'm not supposed to interfere, but, well, that ship sailed a while ago, it looks like."

Jenner was beaming, thrilled by the Doctor's response. "It's settled then. See what the two of you can do. There's a Council meeting tonight, you're both welcome to come to it."

That had been some time ago, and it appeared the Doctor was getting as twitchy as Gilly was by the time she finally snapped. Dela's company had been nice and the other parents they had been introduced to were friendly, but there had been some topics where the two time travelers and the Acropolis survivors butted heads. The debate concerning the ethics of scavenging supplies from the city being a main issue. But that had only been the cover for the real issue that had been nagging at Gilly: none of the parents ever wanted to leave the settlement if they could help it.

One of the parents, a blacksmith called Fladon, summed up the general consensus quite neatly after he had been asked if he was truly satisfied living in tents while under the shadows of some of the most beautiful buildings ever constructed. Flatly, he told the two of them, "Living in the shadows is better than dying in the light."

"Fatalism at its best," Gilly murmured, feeling a dull anger course through her. "Stick your head in the sand and let the universe do its own thing."

Fladon bristled, "Given how we ended up here in the first place, how everything was ripped away from us in an instant, it's a perfectly rational response, wouldn't you say?"

"No," the ex-mortician retorted immediately, her last bit of self-control breaking away. "If I was in your place, I'd fight it all the way. If you give up, you die. This isn't living, this is surviving… a half-life." She looked around herself, taking in all of their surroundings. "No, this isn't a way to live at all, but a way to just barely squeak by. A step away from total surrender if you haven't become resigned to defeat already."

* * *

Evening fell, and by now Gilly had calmed down. She had spent the rest of her day by herself, unwilling to be in anyone's presence. She wasn't one for sulking, but she wasn't in the mood to deal with stubborn defeatists. The Doctor had been out collecting information and doing odd jobs like he had promised. He seemed to have taken a liking to Dela, and the two of them spent the better part of the rest of the day talking. The wayward companion only ran into the Time lord as he was making his way to the Council meeting.

"Oh, there you are," he said. "I had been wondering where you ran off to."

Gilly shrugged. "I had to calm down before I put my foot any further in my mouth. I bet you had to do plenty of damage control as it was."

"A bit, yeah," the Doctor agreed neutrally but the albino still grimace, recognizing that he was just trying to be nice by choosing not to reveal how much her words had angered their hosts. "Are you coming to the meeting?"

"I probably shouldn't, even if I had any desire to. I'd end up snapping at them again," Gilly declined.

"Well, in that case, can you do me a favor?"

"Sure, what?"

"Can you get my coat and belongings? I never got them back from Jeffip, they're still in his office." To be honest, he almost felt naked having empty pockets, the concept a strange on for him to consider. It had to have been a few centuries since the last time he done it. It was also novel for him to not have to come up with a rescue plan for his friends from any immediate danger. This companion wasn't half-bad at listening to his instructions. Well, except for the resting bit. He was still at little peeved at her, but there wasn't much of a point for him to lecture her right now.

"Sure, which building?"

"The same one with the sort of infirmary, you know where that is?" When she gave a nod, he continued, "Right, well, it's not far from that room. Two lefts, a right, another left, and it's the third door down."

"Alright, see you later, I guess." Gilly made to leave but the Doctor called her back after a second.

"Oh, and before I forget, we're leaving after the meeting. This is the best time to leave without alerting anyone." He was gone before she could get a word in edgewise. Gilly had managed to find the building with some help from Dela who she had ran into. Of all the Acropolis survivors, the blonde was the most likeable and the easiest to talk to. She had a calm and soothing presence that coaxed others to relax around her. The ex-mortician found herself telling Dela all about her home and her family, even going so far as to mention her sister, something Gilly hadn't done in a long while. But Gilly had learned about Dela too: about her lover Gyll, her dream to someday leave the settlement, her hope that her children could find their own happiness.

The night had grown that much darker and brought the scent of rain with it by the time they ran into the Doctor, Dela having convinced Gilly to join her in going to the Council meeting. The Time Lord was furious, but his wrath wasn't directed at either woman. The albino had the feeling that the cause of it was the meeting. Suddenly, she was glad that she hadn't been there to witness whatever had made the Doctor that angry in the first place.

"You're angry," Dela noted warily.

"Yes," came the curt reply as the Doctor took the proffered coat, its pockets once again full with all his possessions. The sonic screwdriver was offered separately, this casing still open as Gilly wasn't sure she could put it together without breaking anything. The Time Lord fiddled with it as Dela spoke again.

"You're leaving, aren't you? Both of you."

"Yes." The sonic was in full working order once again. The three of them started walking.

There was a beat of silence. "Take me with you."

Gilly couldn't say that she was exactly surprised by this, the blonde had certainly been hinting at this often enough during their discussion earlier, but the ex-mortician knew just as well as Dela knew what the answer would be.

"No, it's too dangerous. I have my hands full keeping track of Glenda as it is." Gilly didn't even bother correcting him this time. The discussion was purely between the Doctor and Dela.

"I wasn't talking about the Fortress." She paused before starting again. "I can't defend the settlement like Jennver and Fladon can. I want to travel with you in the TARDIS, be like… Rose."

The Doctor stopped. They had talked a lot that afternoon. "No," he told her shortly, his voice quiet. He started walking again. "New Acropolis is borderline viable," he told her gently. "If I take even one person away from it, there's a chance that everyone dies. Everyone. You can't leave. You can't."

Dela knew this already. Somewhere deep within herself, she knew this. That didn't stop her from being bitter about it. "That's it then? Because of something that happened years ago, something too big to comprehend, there are no more choices? Just a treadmill of obligations and duties with no chance of escape?"

"Yes," he answered flatly.

The three of them had entered the same building that housed both Jeffip's office and the infirmary. There was a back way that presented the quickest route of exit, if they could just find it. They entered the wrong room. It contained a bed and various toolboxes. There was something on the bed covered with a silvery sheet that appeared to be made from a very thin foil. With one glance, Gilly knew immediately what it was, having seen it many, many times before.

The ex-mortician entered the room first, gliding across the floor next to where the body lay. She pulled back the covering to reveal a cadaver that was once a teenaged girl. The corpse wore sport white shorts and a camisole top. There was a grey rag covering her face. Something about that rag bothered Gilly. Why cover the face with a rag if you were already covering the body?

"Alright?" She faintly heard the Doctor ask.

"That's Jall, my first born. It happens. She had been in the city and was killed by a ghost." Dela's voice sounded wet, as if she was about to cry.

"That's been bothering me," the Doctor remarked quietly. "From what I heard, the ghosts don't usually leave a body. They vanish into thin air with their victim. So, what's that flannel for, do you think?" Gilly reached out and removed the rag at the Doctor's silent prompt, only to swallow back a scream a moment later.

Jall's eyes, they were gone. Empty sockets glared balefully up at them in silent accusation.

* * *

**A/N: And here we are with another chapter. This one was, hmm, difficult to write and required me to step back from writing this story and take a break. I had to take a critical look at the plot and where I'm going with this. I was originally planning to follow the time line strictly presented by cannon, but it appears some changes needed to be made and will be made.**

**Originally, after the Eyeless arc, we were going to do the Next Doctor, Judgment of the Judoon, the Slitheen Excursion, and _then_ we would do the Prisoner of the Daleks.**

**However, realism decided that it couldn't remain silent any longer and protested, so therefore, this will be the new order:**

**1.) The Eyeless**

**2.) The Next Doctor**

**3.) Prisoner of the Daleks**

**4.) The Slitheen Excursion**

**AND**

**5.) Judgment of the Judoon**

**These are the only changes made thus far. I'll be sure to announce more as they come. Anyway, each arc will be about six chapters each with plenty more arcs after the Judgment of the Judoon. If I had to guess, there will be about 21 - 23 arcs total with one epilogue. There will be no sequel.**

Concerning this chapter specifically, I only have three things to say:

1.) Concerning the OC named Lorelai, I got the name from the German legend of a water spirit that drowns people.

2.) Concerning the OC named Jolene, I got the name from the song 'Jolene' which describe a woman with the same physical attributes.

AND

3.) In the book 'The Eyeless', around this point of the story when the Doctor is talking with Alsa, it mentions him singing a tune when he says "What's it all about, Alsa?" The tune mentioned, as I discovered, is a reference to the song 'Alfie' by Burt Bacharach. The line referenced is "What's it all about, Alfie?"

**So, reviews. They're beautiful things. While they don't force me to write any faster than I feel like writing, they are terrific at stroking my ego and allowing it to be deflated to a more reasonable size. Please continue to do so at your own leisure.**


	8. If You Will Buy It, You Can Sell It

_When you approach potential customers, do you believe in your heart of hearts that you are offering them the best possible option and that they could not do better anywhere else? [...] None of us can be convincing if we don't believe. Look seriously at your own offer, be it a pay award to the union, a marriage proposal, or your own product: Are you overflowing with confident enthusiasm? You ought to be. [...] If you aren't, it might be well worth working on it until it improves to the point where you buy it hook, line, and sinker, and can offer it with confidence. [...] If [you will] buy it, [you] can sell it._

-The Art and Science of Business Persuasion: Mastering the Power of Getting What You Want, Geoff Burch (1994).

* * *

The rain — _which had been threatening to fall from the dark, emerald green clouds all day_ — had released its rage unto the Doctor and Gilly as they fled from the settlement initially. But now, hours later, it had finally begun to slacken. All the albino could do was try to keep up with the Time Lord, as she thought back to what had happened sometime prior over the dead body of Jall, Dela's first born. How only the eyeballs themselves had been removed while everything else was left intact: the bones of the obit, the optic nerves, the muscles… Not to mention that not even a scratch, a bruise, a cut, or any cauterization was left behind. Even if acid had been used like the Doctor had hypothesized, there were no burns and once acid started to dissolve biological matter, it would be extremely difficult to stop it and practically impossible if you left no evidence from the altercation. Especially since the girl was alive during the whole process. Something else had killed Jall, and the only clue was that she smelled faintly of smoke.

What had really shaken Gilly — _because she was no stranger to horrors such as Jall's empty sockets_ — was the brief conversation held between the Doctor and Dela, something that may have meant to be private but she had been witness to anyway. Dela, pleading for him to come back, her eyes wet from the sight of her daughter.

"I will," the Doctor promised her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "And I will found out who did this to Jall."

"And punish them for it?"

And then his eyes, oh, _his eyes_. Burning with a piercing intensity that made Gilly quake in her ballet flats. Flashing with a fire that promised brimstone and hell on Earth… hell on the remains of Acropolis. There would be no prisoners, no mercy, no second chances, as he whispered in a voice that seemed to echo with a dark certainty, "Oh, yes."

And now, Gilly Hopkins wondered, not for the first time, just who she was traveling with and if it was wise to continue doing so. At the moment, she had little choice but after? Well, after this, assuming they survived, she still had the choice to leave, she was sure. He made his point, she believed he was a time traveling alien. But this Doctor… There appeared to be more sides to him that she needed to take into consideration.

_Something for a later time_, she decided as she almost fell into a sewer. The two of them were headed to the white building that Gilly had suggested earlier before the Doctor had been assaulted by Alsa. He still hadn't told her what had made him so angry at the meeting, and she hadn't pried. The sheer noise of the storm and the water runoff was enough to discourage any conversation, even without the Doctor's aura of inapproachability brought into the equation. Too bad that they wouldn't be getting anywhere near the Fortress itself until early morning.

Gilly couldn't wait for this adventure to be over with, as she couldn't help but feel as if the two of them had overstayed their welcome. A feeling that only increased over time. But if the Doctor was to be believed, they needed to shut down the weapon first and quickly.

The Doctor led her to what had once been a plaza. They climbed their way over a fractured hill of ceramic tiles, separated by tenacious creeping charlie or, possibly, some type of moss. The tiles were the kind of off-white that almost seemed to glow in the night despite the lack of a moon. Towards the middle of the plaza was the remains of a fountain: collapsed and overgrown with an alien type of giant lily the size of her head. But none of that was what had caught either her or the Doctor's attention, rather, it was the glass man that stood about eighteen meters away.

_It couldn't be real_, Gilly decided. The glass man was only a little bigger than she was and completely featureless. As the two of them approached it, it didn't move, making the albino wonder if it was merely a statue. However, as she scrutinized it more closely, Gilly realized that this was probably the second type of ghost that the Doctor had mentioned. The idea made her insides turn cold.

The glass man finally turned to look at the duo and took a jerky step back, as if startled. Its face was nearly completely smooth, with small bumps and cervices instead of a nose or mouth. It did not have eyes. When they took another step closer, it raised a six fingered hand straight out in a position that a police man might do when directing traffic, a position that meant 'stop'. Gilly was close enough to notice what looked like a golden dot set into its hand, its diameter roughly around five centimeters across.

"We don't mean you any harm," the Doctor reassured it, giving a smile. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Glenda Hopkins."

It ran away. A comical sight to behold, since the only parts of its body moving was its legs while the arms remained straight by its sides. It was soon out of sight.

"Nice going," Gilly informed him dryly. "You scared it off."

He sputtered, "I did nothing of the sort; I was being friendly!"

"I'm just going to tell you right now, so we can get this out of the way and prevent anymore scares: your smile is creepy."

"Is not!"

"Yes, it_ is_. Alsa and Gar told me so and showed me the hologram of you that they took. Your generic smiles are hella creepy."

"Well, that's just rude," the Doctor huffed, making Gilly laugh.

"That's ironic coming from _you _—"

"— Oh, shut up, would you?" The words contained no bite, but rather a tinge of humor. He ran a hand through his dripping hair. He sighed, "Let's keep going."

* * *

By the time that they had made it to the white building, the rain had finally slackened and the Doctor's hair had finally admitted defeat by releasing its gravity-defying style, going flat and sticking to his scalp. Gilly wasn't fairing much better. Her hair — _which when dry had been reminiscent of countless spider threads_ — now looked like a white octopus had taken residence upon her head, only with around fifteen or so thin and ropey tentacles. They took shelter under a twenty-story sign with glass tubes declaring, _**AIRCAR FACTORY**_. Gilly was unimpressed with their distinct bluntness when naming said factory.

The glass tubes, however, reminded her of home. She remembered her grandmother saying that at one point only Tokyo, Japan had held the moniker 'Neon City', but the albino had always found that hard to believe. _All_ of the major cities were Neon Cities. That's why whenever someone was going to the capitol of their state, providence, or country, they referred to it as 'going Neon', only specifying if they weren't going to the nearest capitol but another one somewhere else. The most famous Neon City was Dubai along with the tallest skyscraper ever created, even taller than the previous record breaker. A building so tall, it was deemed to be a starscraper.

Gilly shook herself out of her reverie, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. The Doctor was acting as if he was a tour guide, but the albino didn't mind very much. A lot of what he had to say was pretty interesting as long as she managed to intellectually keep up with him… A task that was easier to say than do as they made their way along the conveyer belts. They didn't dare use the floor which was covered with pools of questionable substances. Most were identified by the Doctor as paints and glues, but the other liquids remained mysterious and possibly hazardous. The pools added unexpected splashes of color to the otherwise sterile white and chrome environment with the occasional frozen robot worker getting a surprise paintjob.

The Time Lord had taken to wearing his 'brainy specs,' as he had called them, and examined everything with great interest, pointing out things here and there before spouting more facts than Gilly could ever hope to remember. He tapped, prodded, and very nearly _danced_ around the factory, his companion following at a sedate pace behind him. "Oh, take a look at _this_," he would coo. "This is a sonic screwdriver but on a massive scale! Looks just like a car wash, don't it? I bet _every_ aircar was custom made to order. In a city of 200 million, I would also bet no two cars were alike. And with this —"

Suddenly, the Doctor did a complete one-eighty and tackled Gilly, making them fall behind a stack of engine blocks. A blue beam whizzed overhead and shattered a window. "Whoops, sorry," he apologized sheepishly to the disgruntled albino. "It snuck up on me…"

"Again? Gee, Doctor, once is an accident but twice is the beginning of a pattern…"

"That's not how the saying goes."

"Bite me."

"Oh, I'll pass on that right now… Rain check?"

"That was not an invitation and you know it," Gilly snapped. "Don't you even _think _about ever cashing it in, you perverted alien!" The Doctor was laughing hysterically at this point. "I will not be held accountable for my actions if you do, so help me, God. Don't come crying to me when you get what's coming to you… I'll just slap you another one."

"Message received loud and clear," he cackled, grinning at her cheekily.

"Oh, it better," she grumbled testily, leveling him a glower. "I'm giving you thirty seconds to come up with a plan to get around the death lasers before I decide to use you as a meat shield."

"Only need ten," he boasted, creeping back towards the edge of the engine block that covered them.

Gilly huffed. "Show off," she scolded without much sting to her words.

Instead of denying her claim, the Doctor replied instead, "Show off I may be, but I _definitely_ know a thing or two about particle transduction. See, the factory is made from diamond-reinforced type five space concrete — _have no clue what the Fortress made of, sorry_ — and that means there's one, big, whopping problem." He paused and gave her a significant look, his eyebrows raised.

The ex-mortician rolled her eyes but played along. "What's the problem, Doctor?"

"The problem with diamond-reinforced type five space concrete…" The Doctor began as he lifted his sonic and pointed it at ceiling. He pressed a button and it let out a strained warble for several seconds. A crack began to appear before spreading towards the outer wall, right towards the Fortress and stopped once it reached its destination. A chunk of rubble — _more like a pebble, really_ — fell and bounced against the Fortress as it tumbled down the side. The turret, which had been previous aimed at the Doctor and Gilly's direction, now focused on the pebble and shot at it. The energy beam both vaporized the pebble and hit the crack in the ceiling, making the roof collapse on top of the turret, snapping it clean off the Fortress and crushing it to smithereens. The Doctor finished his sentence with a smug smile, "…is that it's incredibly easy to resonate."

His companion blinked, impressed. "Wow."

"'Wow'?" The Doctor repeated, pretending disgust. "Is that all you can say?"

"Oh, _Doctor_, I'm _so_ in awe of your skill, all words simply _fail_ me," Gilly simpered, fluttering her eyelashes and clasping her hands in front of her chin mockingly.

He sniffed haughtily, lips twitching as a grin fought to take over. "Thought so." The two of them got out from behind their hiding place and sauntered over to the Fortress. The Doctor studied the structure, having no need to get out his glasses as he was already wearing them. Testing, he rapped his knuckles against the side of it before feeling along the wall with his fingers, looking for a seam. The moment her found one, he pulled back a panel so thick that he needed to use both hands. With Gilly assisting, they were able to pull it most of the way back, something that the Doctor would have not been able to do alone. By himself, he only would've made an opening just big enough for him to squeeze his lanky form through, but with Gilly, they opened it wide enough where he could slide past comfortably.

They barely spared each other a glance before entering the Fortress. It was pitch black, no light except from what little was emitted from the open panel behind them. "Can't see a thing," Gilly remarked. "You wouldn't happen to have a flashlight on you, would you? Or maybe you're secretly bioluminescent?"

"Ha, ha, ha," the Doctor laughed sarcastically. "Very funny, Glenda —"

"— It's still Gilly —"

"— But unlike you, I don't need a torch," the Doctor sniffed. "Superior Time Lord physiology and all that."

"Yeah, well, goody for you. Still doesn't change the fact that I can't see a damn —"

"— _Language_! —"

"— Thing! So, either bring out that over glorified laser pointer of yours that you call a screwdriver or give me your hand." She felt his hand slip into hers, surprising her slightly at the sudden action. "Oh."

"_I wanna hold your hand_," the Doctor warbled teasingly, singing some unknown tune that Gilly couldn't recognize.

"Er, what?"

He let out a pained sigh. "Don't they teach you anything? That was a classic Earth song… Humans. You'd forget what you had for lunch if someone didn't remind you."

"Hey!" Gilly protested.

"Well, what _did_ you have for lunch?"

Silence.

"Seriously?" The Doctor asked, surprised. "It was s'posed to be a joke."

"Oh, hush," the albino grumbled. "This is actually, _really_ mortifying for me right now… I had a busy afternoon, you know, almost dying and all that."

"That's not funny, Glenda," the Time Lord scolded.

"It is in my line of profession. You develop a morbid and warped sense of humor after a while."

The Doctor sounded like he was about to say something but changed his mind, instead saying, "We'll have to be careful here. We'll start running into traps pretty soon. Stay close and _don't let go of my hand_."

"Wouldn't even dream of it. I'd run into a wall otherwise."

"…I'm being serious, Glenda."

"…So am I."

* * *

They had been traveling in silence for some time, before the Doctor suddenly stopped, tense. "Stay back!" He hissed. "Stay exactly where you are, or we'll both be killed!" It went without saying that Gilly froze quicker than any child playing a game of 'Red Light, Green Light' would have. He reached for something behind her and to the left.

Gilly nearly jumped out of her skin when Alsa's annoyed voice came unexpectedly from that same direction, complaining, "I was being careful."

The Doctor, who had filched Alsa's torch from her bag and turned it on, scolded her, "Not nearly careful enough. Think of this place as a giant, unexploded bomb. The slightest wrong move and we're all dead. Period."

The teen scoffed, "I got past the defenses."

Her comment made the Doctor laugh more than just a little disdainfully. "There are hundreds of thousands of defense, and they don't just stop at the outer wall. The majority of them are on standby. It was pure luck that you haven't tripped any, stumbling around here like you've been doing for the past nine minutes and twenty-four seconds."

"What's standby?"

"You know, a telly that's on but not really on… Ah, I see the problem, you don't watch enough television! You should, five hours a day, minimum, and sit really close to the screen…"

Gilly burst out laughing. "Some doctor you are! That's the quickest way to scramble your brain. Bet you watched far too much as a kid."

The Time Lord pouted in the albino's direction. "Not nearly enough," he declared before turning back to Alsa. "Essentially, the Fortress is asleep. It'll wake up if you disturb it."

The stocky girl pulled a face. "How do you disturb a building? It's just, well, a building, innit?"

The Doctor shook his head, thought about it, and then nodded before pulling a face of his own, shrugging helplessly.

"Oh, you are hopeless with children, Doctor," the ex-mortician groaned. "Look, there are a bunch of sensors that detect if there are intruders. It sends information to a computer, basically a machine brain, which then tells the weapons to kill the intruders."

"Right, yes, what Glenda—"

"— _Gilly_! —"

"— Said. You've got just as much of a chance setting everything off if you go back…" He sighed. "You'll have to stick with us. _Touch nothing_. And don't step where I haven't. Also, if you happen to see a rock—"

"— Or a brick —" Gilly helpfully added with a smirk.

The Doctor sent his companion a warning look. "— Try not to hit me over the head with it, if you can manage that much."

"Whatever," came the flippant reply. It was about as good as they were going to get.

The Doctor gave Gilly the torch to hold while he brought out the sonic screwdriver. The device's tip lit up with a blue light and trilled, causing a hatch along a wall to open. He smiled reassuringly at the two of them before addressing Alsa, "As long as you're the only distraction, we'll be fine. Probably. Most Likely. Hopefully. Just as long as nobody does anything stupid."

There was a beat of silence.

"…You can let go of my hand now, Doctor, we've got a flashlight."

"Right, right," the Doctor coughed awkwardly. "Forgot."

"We're all doomed," Alsa deadpanned.

* * *

Gilly had thought that she had been going insane when she heard the voices until Alsa mentioned it. It appeared the Doctor was the only one who hadn't. Of course, he didn't believe them until the glass men — _the Eyeless_ — deemed it appropriate to reveal themselves emerging eerily from the shadows — _right along with giving the cold order to not move_.

The Doctor somehow seemed to be oblivious to the niggling instinct that screamed 'danger!' at the sight of the glass men or, perhaps, didn't possess one. He looked as if he couldn't possibly be more thrilled at their appearance. "Hello there," he greeted them pleasantly. "I'm the Doctor, met you earlier. You ran off."

_You were an unknown_, it said. The glass man's voice seeming to reverberate inside Gilly's head. _Both of you. We were alone and outnumbered. _Gilly found it strange that used a plural pronoun instead of a singular one. A hive mind, perhaps? _We could tell that you were not like the others, so we regrouped. We are still deciding if you are a threat or not. If we find you to be one, you will be eliminated._

The Doctor gave no reaction whatsoever.

"You really can't hear it speak, can you?" Alsa asked, sounding delighted by this. Gilly eyed the preteen warily.

"I can, though," she reminded the stocky girl, who leveled her with a scowl.

"It doesn't have a mouth," the Doctor mused, stepping closer and, once again, bring out his, beginning to be iconic, glasses. He peered at one of the Eyeless at every angle. The Time Lord's hands twitched, and Gilly gained the distinct impression that he was barely restraining himself from poking the creature. "Well, look at you," the Doctor beamed, genuinely delighted.

"I have to admit, I've never see anything like you before, and believe me, that's quite the accomplishment, being something brand new. Not to mention, I haven't the foggiest of what you could be. No joints, no muscles, no seams, no capillary tubes… At first I thought you might be using nanotechnology, but you're not, are you? You are not a robot. Silicon-based lifeform? No, hold on, hold on, _carbon_-based lifeform but instead of like me, Glenda, or Alsa, the carbon in your body takes the form of diamonds? Is that it? Are you a diamond geezer? You look completely solid, but you can move, animated glass. That is really remarkable, completely brilliant. Are you going to tell me how it's done, or is that a secret?"

Gilly could only stare. You would think that the Doctor was trying to play 'Twenty Questions' with all the asking he was doing, but somehow, the Time Lord still seemed to reach an answer.

_That is irrelevant. Why can we not access your mind, Doctor? Answer the question._

Silence. The Doctor continued to gleefully admire the glass man in front of him.

"I don't think he can," Alsa told the Eyeless.

_Explain yourself. Why can't he? Explain. __**Explain**__. __**Explain!**_

"I don't know why," Alsa responded petulantly. "I'm just telling you. Ask her, not me."

_**Why?**_

"I don't know why," Gilly spat out irritably. "He's an alien, I don't know anything about his species other than they can see in the dark."

"So they are telepathic, a race of glass telepaths called the Eyeless. I mean, cor, how brilliant is that?" The Doctor gushed, looked positively overjoyed. "I can't hear it. Can it hear me?"

_The entire surface of our bodies can register even the smallest vibrations in the air. We are far more sensitive to sound, we have discovered, than any of you are._

Alsa relayed this to the Doctor, having elected herself the spokesperson of the Eyeless. A gleam shone in the Time Lord's eyes as an idea came to him, the twinkle seemed to say 'challenge accepted'. With a mischievous grin, he turned back to the glass man in front of him. He opened and closed his mouth for a few seconds, made hand gestures, pretending to speak but with no audible words coming out.

_Is he stupid?_

"No," Alsa and Gilly said at the same time.

The teen continued, "I think he's dead clever and just pretending."

"I am," the Doctor agreed solemnly. "Problem is, even as clever as I am, I still can't figure out why you call yourself the 'Eyeless'."

"Here's a hint: they have no eyes," Gilly said dryly.

"Well, yes, I can see that," the Doctor groaned, giving his companion a withering look. "But why didn't they pick their noses?" Alsa started giggling, but Gilly didn't get what was so funny. The Doctor transferred his exasperated expression to the younger girl. "Blimey, between the two of you, a bloke can never catch a break. I'm just saying that they don't have noses, either, why not the Noseless, eh? Or the Mouthless? Hairless? Earless? Heartless?"

"Well, why not?" Gilly posed, crossing her arms. "They could call themselves Slendermen."

Now the Doctor looked pained. "You don't know the Beatles, but you know 'Slenderman'?!"

"Hey," the albino protested, crossing her arms defensively. "Anyone who's been born within the past twenty years back at home has seen the horror movie series, 'Creepy Pasta'. I don't think I know anyone who was old enough to have been alive to witness the 'Buttons' or whoever they were."

"_The Beatles_, they're called the _Beatles_," the Doctor choked out, sounding wounded.

"Is there a point to this?" Alsa asked, sounding bored and lost.

"This isn't over, Glenda," the Doctor swore. "You will be a crazed Beatles fan when I'm through with you."

"Best of luck to you," she told him mildly.

The Doctor began to sputter something indignantly about how lightly she was taking such an important matter before Alsa snapped at him impatiently. Grumbling, the Doctor went back to his previous topic before he got sidetracked, "Groups are usually named after where they come from, or what they do, or what they believe in, or what they want to be. What sort of culture names themselves after what they aren't?"

"A counterculture," Gilly answered promptly.

"Oh, don't you start," the Doctor bit out. "Trying to make a point here. Look, why would they name themselves after something they don't have? Something that's not theirs?"

The question hung over them like a wet blanket.

"What are they?" The Doctor asked more directly.

"It's hard to explain," Gilly told him after a moment. "I'm mostly just seeing images. There are these white ships, all whole armada, except not for war. It's a fleet of ships, thousands of them, with one large mothership in the middle… There are so many glass men, they look just like prisms, glowing all these rainbow rays… They travel across the galaxy in search of technology. Because they can read minds, they usually can come to an agreement with the original owner but…" The albino's voice failed as her eyes widened in horror from the images being sent into her mind.

Alsa smiled a shark's grin. "…If not, they just take what they want anyway, just like me."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Are they now?"

"They've just promised to change things here."

"Have they, indeed?"

"They say that I shouldn't trust you, either of you, because they don't trust you."

The Doctor snorted. "That's because they're used to reading minds. They've never need to earn trust before, just taken it. Scavengers, thieves, thugs, that's what they are, on a cosmic scale."

"They're demanding to know why they can't read your mind," Gilly groaned, a headache starting to form from the constant, intrusive presence.

The Doctor jabbed a thumb as his chest. "I'm a Time Lord. We come with top-of-the-line psychic defenses as standard. I imagine a race as well traveled as the Eyeless have heard all about them."

"No, they've never heard of them before now," Alsa told the Doctor, making him deflate.

"Oh… Really? Is that so?"

_Is his TARDIS a time machine?_ One of them asked and Gilly's blood ran cold. Thankfully, her mind went blank.

"That's a stupid question," Alsa scoffed before wincing when the Eyeless got more aggressive in demanded that the question be asked. "Okay, okay, _fine_. They want to know if your TARDIS can travel through time."

The Doctor's genuine, pleasant smile suddenly became the fixed and creepy one. "Er, what? No, that's a ridiculous idea."

"They would very much want a time machine," Alsa told him.

"More like are demanding it," Gilly grumbled.

"And you said that you're a Time Lord and you told Dela that TARDIS stands for Time And Relative —"

The Doctor was quick to interrupt as Gilly tried to focus on nothing in particular. "Oh, right! Yes, I can see why there's all this confusion. No, it's thyme, with an H-Y. Like the herb. I'm a Thyme Lord." It was all Gilly could do to not groan or cringe from the terrible, terrible lie. Instead, she focused on everything she knew about thyme and everything relevant to herbs. "As a, er, Thyme Lord, I know that it's good with a roast chicken and in biscuits. You wouldn't think so, but try it, just a couple of tablespoons. Got loads of recipes, all trade secrets, can't go into too much detail."

Gilly continued, forcing herself to believe the lie and become convinced of it holding some truth, "Of course it's not just thyme he cares about, other herbs matter too… unfortunately for me. See it wasn't just my illness that he as a doctor was trying to that care of — _by the way, I wouldn't be surprised if my pills had thyme in them too… It's everywhere in that blue box _— but also my own recipes that hold the three main herbs: thyme, rosemary, and basil. Like my famous vegetable stew, the trick is all in the herbs _and_ spices. Of course, he doesn't like to hear that, because he's strictly herbs only. Doesn't want to admit that spices are just good and —"

_Enough!_

"Stop!"

Both Alsa and the Eyeless cried out at the same time, overwhelmed by all the gab and influx of useless facts about herbs and spices that filled Gilly's mind. Abruptly, the Eyeless's presence disappeared from Gilly's mind, avoiding it like it held a disease. Alsa shuddered, "We believe you. And the Eyeless wonders if she's this bad how much worse you are, Doctor."

"Oi!" The Doctor half-heartedly protested but was overall relieved that the lie had stuck.

"They… They actually _want_ your recipes," Alsa sounded both disbelieving and sickened at the thought of wanting any part of the madness that both the Doctor and Gilly seemed to be a part of. "It's what they do, they take not just stuff but experiences, thoughts, emotions, fantasies… They keep them as souvenirs, badges."

"Proof of individual achievement in a hivemind," the Doctor muttered to himself.

Alsa continued, "If they are the first to do something, they get to keep a memento of it." Turning to the glass men, she pointed proudly at a ribbon on her jacket. "We're the same! I earn this when I beat Hlann in a fight, broke his nose and everything." The glass men that had remained just on the edges of sight, came closer. The Doctor sucked in a breath at the sight of one particular one. That Eyeless was just too far from Gilly's visual range to see what had garnered that reaction. However, it wasn't left up to her imagination for long.

"This one Eyeless does indeed have eyes," the Doctor noted hoarsely, before his voice hardened, the whole demeanor shifting to offensive. "You know, it strikes me as strange why you lot would be here. You have galactic travel and yet this civilization has been reduced to the pre-industrial stages. They are like mere children compared to you. Well, Alsa has an excuse, she's barely even thirteen."

"Hey!" Alsa snarled, instinctively taking a step closer to the Eyeless.

The Doctor caught the movement, his eyes narrowed onto the stocky girl. "You seem pretty chummy with them, Alsa."

"I can hear their thoughts, and they can hear mine," she answered stiffly as the Doctor regarded her with an intense and almost piercing gaze.

"Birds of a feather, eh? Glenda and I are a bit like that," the Doctor said casually, turning to look at his companion, his face out of view of the Eyeless. He raised his eyebrows significantly, catching Gilly's attention, he held her gaze.

"I have no idea what that means," Alsa stated flatly.

The Doctor made what looked like a dismissive motion, flapping his hand in what appeared to be a vague and random direction. Gilly understood. She blinked slowly one time. The Doctor turned away to face Alsa and the glass men once more, the whole exchange between himself and the albino taking less than a second. "This one with the eyes, he killed Jall. Do you realize that Alsa?"

"Sure, he's wearing her eyes."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"Better her than me," Alsa stated callously.

The Doctor stared at her sharply. "And what makes you think that's the choice?"

Alsa's answer was a bitter one. "I don't come from a planet with choices."

"We'll see about that," the Doctor mused, his expression impassive. He turned to face the Eyeless with Jall's eyes just as Gilly made to slip away.

"She's trying to escape!" Alsa shouted and the Doctor's eyes narrowed on her.

_Perceptive one_, he thought to himself. The Eyeless with the eyes raised its right hand, held it straight out so that it faced Gilly, palm flat. There was a golden disk imbedded in the center of the palm and it shone bright like the sun. Thoughtlessly, the Doctor jumped in the way just before the light pulsed. Gilly cried out in alarm…

The light died down. Nothing had happened.

The Doctor stood there unaffected, idly flipping the sonic in his hand that he just took out of his pocket. His voice was as cold and hard as ice, "A weapon which literally burns out the neurons, smoke pours out of the nose and mouth… Doesn't work on me just like your telepathy doesn't work on me." All of the Eyeless took a step back except the one with Jall's eyes. "Forget about Glenda, she's nothing compared to me. _I'm _the threat, so you better start treating me like it."

This time when Glenda slipped out like she had been directed to earlier, no one tried to stop her.

"Now, you and I…" The Doctor started lowly, ancient eyes staring down the dead green ones of the Eyeless. "We have a score to settle. You killed Jall and I made a promise about Jall… I will honor it." He stared the Eyeless down a bit longer, as if willing it to take to say something to him, but after a moment, he took a step back. "Last chance, Alsa. Pick which side you're on."

She laughed at him. "You make it sound like we're playing a game."

The Doctor broke eye contact from the Eyeless to look Alsa directly in the eyes. He saw nothing but contempt there. _So be it_, he thought to himself, passing judgement.

"Alsa?"

"_Yes_, Doctor?" She said, sneering.

"Playtime's over."

* * *

**A/N: So, here we are. Here's where we start heading towards the climax of the story. I believe we'll only have two more chapters for this arc at the very most. So be prepared. The next chapter will probably be about the same length as this one, maybe a little longer, I don't know.**

**This chapter is beta-less, and I may have lost contact with the beta for this story... All spelling errors are my fault.**

**A few things to address: I sent Gilly outside for a reason, she WOULD NOT survive if she followed the Doctor otherwise. There would be more ways with her ending up dead than you have fingers on your hands, no matter if you have more than five fingers per hand or not.**

**Alsa is not necessarily evil, just a very angry and very bitter teenager... with some sociopathic tendencies...**

**The Eyeless, just let me be clear, did_ not_ create the Fortress. We never actually meet the creator of the Fortress. It's assumed that they're dead.**

**As for Gilly herself, why she ran... Well, it's simple, the Doctor told her to and she trusted him to have a plan. She _might've_ disobeyed him at first out of concern for his being, but when she saw that the weapon of the Eyeless remain ineffective against the Doctor... She decided that he could probably handle it.**

**Also, can I just say that the Doctor is the world's biggest Gary Stu? Seriously, OP to the max.**

**I do have a question for all of you: If you had one song to describe this story, what would it be? I'm thinking of doing a music video for this...**

**And, of course, the best way to answer a question such as this would be to leave a review.**


	9. I Can Take Anything

_You've got me caught in a place,_  
_ Panic for a minute, got my brain in a daze, _  
_I wish you weren't in it._

_There are so many ways to lose your attention._  
_ You can break everything, but so what?_  
_ I can take anything._

\- Little Dreams, Ellie Goulding (2010).

* * *

Glenda Hopkins skittered out of sight but couldn't bring herself to entirely run away without making sure that the Doctor, himself, found a way to either escape, diffuse the situation, or a way to continue onwards with his original goal of finding and deactivating the weapon. But she needn't have worried, as he had found a way to do two of the above. Using the sonic, he opened another doorway and stepped through, quick to close it behind himself. His actions were too quick for anyone else to follow after him except for one of the actually eyeless Eyeless.

Alsa let out a shriek of anger and Gilly took this as her que to leave before it was noticed that she was still present. There would be no Doctor to help her this time if she was caught. She gingerly felt her way back through the dark corridor, the Doctor's words echoing through her head, '_Just as much of a chance of setting everything off if you go back…_' But she made the return trip to the outside of the Fortress unscathed. Gilly had to consider the possibility that he might have lied in order to ensure that Alsa stayed with them so the stocky girl couldn't ambush them later.

The sun in the green sky blinded Gilly the moment she stumbled out of the Fortress through the narrow opening she and the Doctor had created earlier. She froze the instant her eyesight cleared and she spotted four more Eyeless who appeared to be standing guard in front of the entrance. _I am not a threat_, the albino chanted in her mind, hoping that the singular phrase would be enough to grant her a safe passage if she repeated it often enough.

_We know. Stand with the others and you will not be harmed_, the Eyeless replied. Gilly was unable to tell if a single individual answered her or they all did. Regardless, she was escorted away from the entrance of the Fortress and would not be able to return to it again as long as the glass men were guarding it as zealously as they were. Jeffip noticed her first and seemed to be alarmed that she was the only one to emerge, cautious approaching her while warily eying her decidedly deadly escort.

Before he could even open his mouth to ask, the ex-mortician solemnly answered him, "They're alive, both of them. I got sent back out so I couldn't be used as a hostage. The Doctor is continuing his mission, and Alsa has decided to join the Eyeless. We are alone."

"She wouldn't," a boy protested. "Not Alsa."

"Yeah, you're lyin'," another sneered.

"Believe what you want," Gilly told them flatly. "But it doesn't change a thing. Until the Doctor does what he set out to do, we are alone. Unless Alsa has a change of heart, she won't be coming back. We can't fight the Eyeless, so the best we can do is not provoke them." A flash of light caught her eyes and she frowned. "What is that?" There were three alien space ships, easily miles away. Between each ship, the air was filled, white against the green sky. They could have been unnatural storm clouds with a bright ray of sunlight peeking out underneath them. She answered her own question, "Their ships, that's what I saw, what they showed me…"

"One of the Eyeless, it had Jall's eyes," Dela murmured quietly, looking ill. Gilly grimaced, uncertain of what to say. Greg, her co-worker, had always been the one to deal with the grieving family members, not her.

_Greg…_ How long had it been since she last seen him? Nearly seventeen days, if she didn't count her time with the Doctor. She wondered if he missed her as much as she suddenly missed him in that moment, that piece of normality in the life that was never quite normal for her. Especially now.

_What are you looking at?_ An Eyeless demanded, making Gilly turn around in shock. The Eyeless appeared to facing Jeffip in an almost hostile manner, a complete change from the species usual indifferent and calm demeanor.

"I meant no offense," the older man demurred, taking to looking at his feet.

Gilly exchanged baffled glances with Dela when it pressed the issue, _You like looking at people?_

"Why is it doing that? It's like it's drunk," the blonde noted, and she was right. The entire body posture was different as well, more of a swagger and a lot more aggressive than before. It regarded all of them, the action conveying an angry annoyance.

_We consulted our colleague and have determined that the presence of such a weapon changes our plans. We have decided on a strategy of violent conflict resolution. Do not attempt to leave the area, as we have further use for you all._ For some reason she couldn't explain, Gilly felt enraged by this instead of the horror that she normally would have. Jeffip and Dela reacted much the same way, all of them looking furious and wanting sorely to take their anger out on something. Jeffip shoved the Eyeless and Dela gave him a scolding on how he should be more careful to not provoke it.

"The Doctor warned us, you know that already," Jeffip grounded out curtly, only to get no response from the glass man. He tried again, "You would attack the Fortress?"

_The assault will begin shortly. Take cover and do not resist us, or you will face the consequences._

Fladon — _the blacksmith from before that Gilly had chewed out_ — and the two little boys from before heard the warning as well and were making their way to the same engine blocks that Gilly and the Doctor hid behind earlier. However, they remained far enough out of range that they were not affected by the same artificial rage that was consuming the other three and the Eyeless. For whatever reason, the albino wanted to slap Dela who was standing next to her, which was strange because the blonde had done nothing against her. Dela, meanwhile, looked three seconds away from strangling Gilly, again for seemingly no reason at all.

What none of them were aware of was that Alsa had traded in some of her anger to the Eyeless with Jall's eyes, in exchange for more knowledge. Because the Eyeless were a hive mind, the rage infected the rest of the nearby Eyeless, which had, in turn, infected the human and the two Acropolians. Fladon and Dela's two sons — _Cozzan and Morren_ — remained out of range and, therefore, unaffected.

"I can't allow it," Jeffip spat. "I will do everything in my power to stop you."

The old man's words, being taken as an ample enough provocation, made the Eyeless turn to him and raise its arm. Gilly's eyes widened in alarm, her anger dissolving into horror as she recognized the very same action that would have taken her own life had the Doctor not interfered. "Jeffip, get back, now!"

He turned to her, still infected by the artificial anger of the Eyeless. "Young lady, I —"

With a flash as bright as the sun, Jeffip was hit and staggered forward a step before stumbling over. Smoke poured from his mouth and nostrils as he tried to pull himself up, tried to cough, but, instead, all he did was die. _A weapon which literally burns out the neurons_, the Doctor's voice echoed through Gilly's mind as she watched Jeffip's body fully collapse onto the ground, her veins ice cold. Dela's anger had disappeared as well the moment the leader of the settlement was killed in front of her, she was in shock.

Gilly froze, the long second ticking by as she stared at the body. _Another grave_, she noted before shivering, despite the warmth the sun provided. Even now, after all her years as a mortician, even though dealing with death was a common subject in her family with her father's job as coroner, even though she took a lot after her mother in the way of being hard to shake or unsettle, Glenda Hopkins turned into a statue as Jeffip collapsed, dead, at her feet. Her job, while it dealt with the deceased, did not include being witness to the actual cause of death. This was the second death she had bared spectator to in the last two days.

The sensation of the cold numbness that had consumed her when in the presence of the ghost returned. She wasn't thinking. She wasn't feeling. She existed. That was all.

The Eyeless told them once more to join the other humans and Gilly finally had some direction on what to do next. Calmly, much too calmly for how she should have been, the albino took it upon herself to grab ahold of Dela's arm. She led the other woman behind the engine blocks with the others — _before the Eyeless that cut down Jeffip would think them to be resisting as well _— and sat down.

They waited, quiet and shocked into mindless compliance.

Dela replayed the death over and over in her mind, grieving and trying to think about how anyone could possibly survive a situation such as this. Gilly's thoughts, however, were muted in comparison, disjointed and all avoided what she had played witness to. Her inner thoughts revolved around what they were waiting for, what 'violent conflict resolution' could possibly mean, which would be many things, but she had a feeling that it might involve more death lasers.

Death lasers.

Has this what her life had been reduced to? Expecting such a thing as deadly laser beams to be a legitimate threat? Gilly realized on an intellectual level that she was merely adapting to the new situation her life choices had placed her in, but on an emotional level, dulled though it be at the moment, it repelled her. Just like the normalcy the idea of Greg provided, so did the previous concept of deadly lasers only being a part of movies and high security establishments that were far removed from her home situation, right on the border between Wisconsin and Michigan where the woods and the Great Lakes were her neighbors. Such was what her life had become. Glenda's shallow and absent train of thought was abruptly cut short with the very attack that she had earlier disdained.

First, it was the light, a light so bright that it grew and swelled, burning itself into her mind even though her eyes were now clenched shut… Even though everything was dark but for the afterimages left behind. Still, Glenda could feel the sheer heat and memories of a lecture back in the secondary school, followed by the disturbing pictures and a documentary that followed.

_'In August 1945, during the final stage of the Second World War, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, were the first of nuclear weapons for warfare in history, which was only followed up by the last one in March 2029 in the infamous Second Cold War which as we all know ended in a tragic misunderstanding…'_

_'…roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. As you can see here, here, and here…'_

_'You know how you see the bright sun that's going down on a very hot day? Bright red — orange red. That's what it was like. After we heard a big noise like a "BOONG!" "BOONG!" Like that. That was the sound… everything started falling down; all the buildings started flying around all over the place. Then something wet started coming down, like rain. I guess that's what they call black rain. In my child's mind, I thought it was oil… And we kept running. And fire was coming out right behind us, you know.'_

And then came the sound.

There was a sense of terror, unlike anything that Gilly had even experienced, primal and wild. It coated her and soaked through even the blanket of numbness that she surrounded herself in. In order to cope, the ex-mortician attempted and failed to block out the world around her. The ground vibrated beneath her, like it was a giant creature, growling and rumbling underneath her. Gilly was scared that the sound and light would tear her to shreds, that no one would survive this, being this close to ground zero in the blast zone of the Eyeless ships.

Terrified but alive, Gilly waited for this hell — _for what else could it be?_ — to end. She could picture what was happening in her mind ever so clearly. Just like those circles in the center of each glass man's palm blasting out flashes of light, so were those little suns under each of those ships only on a much grander scale. The huge pulse and flash of energy slamming into the Fortress, making its walls crumble. _The Doctor_, she realized, concern over his welfare becoming a tether to hang onto in her groundless state. _Oh, God, he's still in there._

But there was nothing that she could possibly do to help him, not now and probably not even then when she was with him. The young woman could only wait and worry as the light and overwhelming sound died down before ending. Her ears ringing in the sudden quiet, Gilly opened her eyes, and saw nothing but a dark blackness and swimming afterimages. She was blind.

* * *

The thick steel door slammed down in front of the Doctor, almost taking his toes along with it. Toes that he was very attached to in both senses of the word. Symbols set into the heavy metal door explained that it would remained deadbolt sealed for precisely sixty seconds. Sensors scanned a whirled about him, the Fortress completing a full bioscan of the Doctor, which he honestly wasn't entirely alarmed about. For one thing, it meant he was getting closer to the weapon's chamber. And for another, he was much more concerned about the glass man who had been chasing after him through the traps of jets of poison gas, plastic fire straps meant to snare a person's chest like a boa constrictor, electric beams, and various other nasty surprises.

The Doctor had only managed to get this far thanks to Alsa's comm which he had filched earlier when he took her torch and set it to display all the internal defenses of the Fortress with his rather superb hacking skills. He had also spotted the three Eyeless ships — _assuming that was exactly what they were and not, say, a fifth party that he would have to deal with _— outside when he had first eluded Alsa and her merry band of glass men a little over thirty minutes ago.

He paused in his thoughts. Had it really been that long already? Oh, he hoped Glenda had gotten away unlike his usual companions who would always wander off and get into trouble. The Doctor waited anxiously for the door to open as he continuously checked behind him, on the watch for the single pursuing Eyeless. He had to get this done and faster before the Eyeless reached the weapon. No, he scolded himself, he had to be faster than that, before they even tried. Because once they started trying to take what they wanted by force, well, that would set the Fortress off and make both his and Glenda's life that much more difficult.

Not to mention the mystery of the ghosts. The Doctor had ran into one earlier, it had seemed almost sentient compared to the first one he had encountered. It had used Alsa's comm to communicate with him. It seemed to believe that the attack have just happened fifteen minutes ago and not the fifteen years it had really been. Further investigation and conversing revealed the ghost's identity to be Gyll, Dela's lover long dead. This posed a conundrum, there was the possibility that Gyll or others were alive but there was the all too real possibility that it had been a trap. The Doctor had settled to promising the ghost that he would come back for both him and Dela as soon the matter of the weapon was sorted out.

That encounter with the ghost was what truly rattled the Doctor. Despite what he may have told Glenda and the Acropolitians earlier to somewhat reassure them with a logical explanation, the Time Lord wasn't quite sure that it was so logical anymore. It didn't make sense, at least not to him, why the ghost were the one of the automatic defenses of the Fortress. If it was a defense for the Fortress, then there should be a mechanical, perfect logic involved.

The Doctor wasn't sure which of the two options worried him the most: that this was a game part of the Fortress was playing with him and he didn't know the rules… Or that really was the ghost of Gyll.

It was Gyll being a ghost that bothered the Doctor, even though it implied plenty of trouble as it usually did concerning ghosts. It was the fact that there were any ghosts in the first place. The main function of the weapon, what it did was utterly obliterate its target and leave no evidence of the act behind. But ghosts? Ghost were traces. Ghosts were evidence. If those were actual ghosts, wouldn't that mean the weapon had not just missed them, but also affected them?

No, the Doctor didn't like this. He didn't like thinking too hard about the weapon and why it did what it did. He was here to get it, destroy it, and leave, regardless of the Acropolitians wanted. Neither he or Glenda could stay, they had interfered long enough. There weren't supposed to be any survivors, no interruptions or backtracking. The Time Lord could have taken Glenda to ancient Greece by now. She would've loved it so much better than the ruins left behind in her time. There was even less than what was left at the early 2000's.

Well, he supposed it would do for an apology.

The Doctor checked down at the comm to see that it had went dark. Muttering to him, he gave it a good shake. It plan of the Fortress reappeared, but as it did so, the floor shook. That was strange, did he really just…? The Doctor rattled the comm again. The floor shook once more. "Am I doing that?" He asked queried, utterly baffled as to how that could be. He was about to wave the comm back and forth again, when he noticed something on the screen. The little Eyeless ships were labeled in red, targets. "Oh."

So it hadn't been him, it had been the Eyeless starting their attack. He had failed his earlier objective, hadn't been fast enough. Cursing for the second time that day, the Doctor knew he had to get to that weapon first above all else. There was a click and the deadbolt slid back. The minute was up. The slowly began to rise and there was still no sign of his pursuer… Until the Doctor chanced a glance behind himself.

He barely had time to register what it was — _something the size of a man, glinting, barely visible, and lunging straight towards him_ — and his reflexive, panicky dodge just barely did the trick in escaping its grasp. Thoughtlessly, the Doctor lurched to the door only to rebound against it as it only partially open. "You lot need to stop the attack!" He shouted before ducking under another swipe. "It's only going to provoke the Fortress and wake it up!"

The glass man didn't care. It wasn't heeding the Doctor's well placed warning. The Time Lord's mind scrambled to gather what it knew about its opponent. It functioned on what it saw as logic, likely a hive consciousness, a scavenger, and it was telepathic — _it herded him two paces away from the almost fully open door, very not good_ — meaning it was dependent on reading its opponent's mind. How fortunate for the Doctor as he feint right before darting to the left and passing through the door.

It slammed down behind him, keeping the Eyeless on the other side to be bioscanned. The Doctor had one minute. _Breathe in. Breathe out._ The Doctor coached himself before he hurried onwards, following the directions that the comm gave him. Flitting down corridors and dashing around corners, eager to put as much distance between himself and the Eyeless as he could muster, the Doctor finally entered the inner vault.

It was a vast space — _bigger than even the redone Roman colosseum from the New Roman Empire_ — and very nearly pitch black. Despite his earlier boasting of superior Time Lord physiology, the Doctor was sorely wishing for the torch he had handed Glenda earlier, for even he was having a difficult time making out what could later become important details. He may have been about halfway up, but he couldn't be for sure, only knowing that he was on a narrow metallic walkway. Something he deduced by the sound of his footsteps, the surface of the railing, and the tang of metal on his tongue. Not to mention that it only made sense for the garish and unsightly metal Fortress to be made of the same material inside and out — _even though the conflicting flavors of various metal elements hinted otherwise_.

The Doctor could just about make out the vague outlines of what could only be other walkways and long, noodle-like power cables. He supposed that they were numerous, scattered around far above and below him. The only thing that interested the Time Lord was the indistinct and looming feature in front of him, for the most part hidden in the gloom. The shaking had stopped and the Fortress was quiet —

The Doctor froze, as well he should, for the Fortress was utterly silent.

In general, the whole planet had been quiet and the wall of the Fortress had provided even further soundproofing, even against the silence itself. However, as it was made of metal and there was no other noise to act as a buffer, everything sound made in the Fortress was exponentially amplified. Every move, every step, every breath the Doctor took, echoed. But it wasn't the literal lack of sound that alarmed the Doctor — _for it could never be that simple_ — but the presence of the Fortress was a noise all its own. An oppressive strength that was as tangible as a wave, no, a _flood_ of sound to him. There had always been a weight to this place and now, inexplicably, it was gone.

No, 'gone' was not the right word for this particular sensation niggling and bothering one of the Doctor's many time senses. Rather, it was like the Fortress was holding its breath, anticipating a signal. All the potential that the Doctor had sensed merely pooling around the structure had been suddenly gathered up, like the water receding from the shore just before a tsunami. The Doctor knew, he just knew, what tidal waves could be expected given the right stimulus. A shiver of pure dread coursed through him.

Klaxons and sirens howled and whined piercingly throughout the structure without any indication or warning, making the Doctor's hearts seize before racing overtime. For three terrible seconds, the Time Lord assumed that he was the source of all the fuss — _as per usual_ — and prepared himself accordingly, tense and ready to flee at the soonest indication of a threat to his person. But for once, he wasn't at the center of focus, and the Doctor remembered quite suddenly the Eyeless ships which had been attacking outside until recently. Why pay attention to the tiny cobble mouse when there was a charging carnivorous maw coming straight towards you?

The Fortress hummed and throbbed, its interior lighting up in a soft orange-white glow that revealed the entire cavernous room, a three-sided pyramid. It was much larger than the Doctor had previously estimated, easily being the height of twenty leaning Tower of Pisa's stacked on top of each other. All of them straight, of course. Now revealed to him was not the unsightly black metal that he had been expecting, but the same plethora of metals that he had been tasting constantly.

There were great galleries, staging platforms, empty hanger bays, and docking cradles, all were set in several metallic layers with rainbow steps of metal. The colors ledged in gold, silver, copper, iron, steel, bronze, and more besides, all interconnected with tunnels and walkways and all at some point leading to the very structure that the Doctor had barely been able to make out earlier. The very core of the Fortress itself, it was a grey column that went from the floor to the ceiling, easily thirty meters thick. A virtual building within a building.

Taking all of this in, from far below to impossibly high, the Doctor felt a rare sensation of vertigo and took a moment to collect himself, fixing his gaze on the dark grey column. Somewhere in its very heart rested the weapon, so impossibly far away. The Doctor supposed that this was what Frodo felt like as he gazed at the peak of Mount Doom from its foot. The weapon's chamber — _located ten stories above him_ — had a single, long walkway leading to it. A walkway that the Doctor would bet was the most heavily defended route in the entire place. However, the comm said there was a lift that lead straight up to the chamber itself.

The Doctor suspected nothing and if Gilly was with him, she would have scolded him for his foolishness in not noticing such an obvious trap. Either way, the Time Lord was too distracted by all the stimulus around him to consider the possibility of a set up. Furthermore, he was far too relieved to see that the Eyeless ships had the strategy computers full attention, information that was, once again, provided by the comm. As of yet, there was no sign that the internal defenses had been escalated or primed. The Doctor was only a mere cobble mouse.

"Bless you," the Doctor gushed only to choke when a glass arm wrapped around his throat.

* * *

Gilly had stopped panicking at this point, succumbing once again to the numbness as it losing her head wouldn't help anyone, least of all her. Dela — _once she knew that the albino's eyes were flash blinded_ — took it upon herself to be Gilly's guide. According to the other woman, the glass men's attack had dealt no visible damage to the Fortress. Fladon insisted that they all should make their escape while the going was good, while the Eyeless were suitably distracted.

For a long moment, the Fortress did nothing. It sat there as impassive as always before adjusting its turrets and firing, the familiar sound of the death lasers making Gilly reflexively duck away from the sound. There were the sounds of eleven of the Fortress's death lasers, one minor explosion, a second major explosion, the sound of something big hitting the water, and six of the Eyeless weapons firing before there was, once again, deadening silence.

A small question to Dela later and Gilly had the brief overview of what had happened. The first three shots had been testing ones before seven simultaneous ones punched through the hull of an Eyeless ship. This was where the minor explosion had taken place. The ship had listed to one side but had managed to right itself, drifting out of range so as to avoid taking more damage. The Fortress had fired one more time, hitting another ship on the right and making the tiny sun under it plummet to the water below, the Eyeless ship close behind. Here the major explosion occurred, large enough to leave a giant crater and the shockwave enough to topple a few nearby buildings. The remaining Eyeless ship had retaliated by blasting away all the turrets on that side of the Fortress.

"As long as they stay put," Gilly murmured emptily. "They should be safe without the turrets."

"Are they done fighting?" Morren asked quietly to her left.

"Until the Eyeless decide to attack again, but right now, they're probably too busy licking their wounds."

Cozzan snorted. "They don't have any mouths."

"It's a turn of phrase," she sighed. "But it doesn't matter. I'm crippled without my eyesight, Jeffip's dead, the Doctor's hopefully still alive in the Fortress, and Alsa's compromised… Did I forget anything?"

Fladon shook his head before he realized that the ex-mortician couldn't see him. Clearing his throat awkwardly, he vocalized, "No, but that doesn't answer what we're going to do with it." The 'it' he was referring to being Jeffip's body.

"We leave it, of course. The settlement's too far away and our chances of escaping successfully are that much lower if we're weighed down with a corpse." She paused a moment before adding frankly, "The same applies to me. I'm blind, possibly permanently unless my retina gets it act together sometime soon. I will be as much of a handicap to you as Jeffip, the only difference being that I'm alive."

Dela had made a sound of protest over Gilly calling herself a burden but before she could make her opinion known, there was a thunderous crack. "What was that?" She asked instead.

"It came from that direction," Gilly said, pointing her thumb over her shoulder and unknowingly at the Fortress. By this point, now that it was relatively safe, the other humans who had been scattered around the Factory joined the small group of five.

"It reminds me of ice breaking," Fladon observed. "Think that the Eyeless attack might have weakened the Fortress's foundations?"

Gar sneered, making Gilly jerk in surprise from his voice suddenly appearing next to her, "Without even cracking the windows?" Having seen many buildings in the city collapse over the course of his time in the city, he was something of an expert in weakened foundations.

Another, much louder, crack and groan resounded around them. Undoubtedly, it belonged to the Fortress.

* * *

**A/N: So, yes, angst galore. I am hoping that this was satisfactory whumpage (whumping? whumpery?) for you, Ashena-Iulik. It may not be our "sponge whump" but it is whump nonetheless. And I'm sure you will be quite pleased to hear that more awaits in the next chapter for you.**

**A little less humor and a little more suffering, but hopefully the quality has remained consistent.**

**Also, before you ask any questions, no, Gilly's lack of sight isn't permanent, only flash blindness. While most people's eyes are somewhat protected by the pigment in their iris, you have to remember that Gilly has none. Just like Leena back in the episode 'The Horror of Fang Rock' she has temporarily lost her eyesight from retina overload. But while Leena's eye color changed slightly from the bleaching of her retinal pigment, Gilly's will remain the same.**

**And, no, her glasses didn't help. With something that bright, there's very little that a miniscule, in comparison, bit of shade will do to protect.**

**Also, just so you know and have a little background, the only reason that the Eyeless are on that planet, is because they detected the Doctor's TARDIS, something they refer to as a 'hypercube'. So, basically, it's all the Doctor's fault that this is happening. They didn't even know about the weapon until Alsa let the knowledge of its existence slip.**

**Either way, I'm hoping to conclude this arc within the next chapter so we can move onto the next arc after a short interlude. There we will learn a bit more about Gilly and hopefully have some comedic relief.**

**Once again, a shout out to emptyvoices, my beta who I turned out to have not misplaced like I originally suspected.**

**Just a question, how many of you American readers are from Michigan or Wisconsin?**

**And as always, reviews are much appreciated. Constructed criticism, prose praising, or flaming fulmination are all acceptable terms of reviewing, although any alliteration appointed to it is optional (challenge: see how much you can do in a row while making grammatical sense!).**


	10. No One Else To Blame - But Yourself

_Tell us all again, what you think we should be,_  
_ What the answers are, what it is we can't see._  
_ Tell us all again, how to do what you say,_  
_ How to fall in line, how there's no other way,_  
_ But, oh, we all know:_

_ You're guilty all the same,_  
_ Too sick to be ashamed._  
_ You want to point your finger,_  
_ But there's no one else to blame._  
_You're guilty all the same._

\- Guilty All the Same, Linkin Park (2014).

* * *

The Doctor had gotten free of the chokehold, but the Eyeless still had a strong grip on his lapels. The Time Lord, meanwhile, had the glass man in a makeshift wrestling hold. Before of them were vying for the upper hand. The Eyeless, while it lacked any creativity in using all the textbook moves in hand-to-hand combat, was effective in the execution of the various and many fighting techniques. The Doctor's saving grace was that he was well educated in much of the same disciplines and was able to predict the moves. For the ones he didn't know, his instincts were what had literally saved his neck. Thrice.

In a parody of a waltz, the two shifted and spun in the attempt to trip their counterpart while avoiding the loss of their own footing. Dancing across the gantry, they twirled right into the very lift that the Doctor had spotted earlier. The door shut behind them and the floor moved. Suspiciously enough, there were no traps within the lift. Not jets of poison gas, flamethrowers, traps doors, or wires set to electrocute its passengers. But it was still far from safe, as the Eyeless had been an unaccounted for extra.

The Doctor's head rattled as he was shoved against the wall. While the Doctor was much stronger than a human and the Eyeless had about the same strength as a human, it didn't change the Time Lord's weight which leaned towards less than average for his height and gender for humanoids. Humanoids. Should be Time-Lord-oids if he had any say. His people came first… Oh, that didn't look good.

The Doctor twisted, avoiding a punch to the face and simultaneously tripping up his opponent. Just like the Time Lord's lack of weight being a disadvantage, so was the glass man's. The Eyeless was now pinned, the Doctor having a knee right between its shoulder blades, although it was most certainly putting up a good fight. The arm the Doctor had twisted in a subduing pose had a small anchor inside of it, like a little sailor's tattoo. Unable to stop himself, the Time Lord let slip a strangled giggle as the Eyeless bucked and thrashed to shake him off. It was with gritted teeth that the Doctor slammed his opponent back down on the floor. There was a creak from under him, and the Doctor wondered worriedly just how brittle the Eyeless were.

But the glass man seemed just as confused as the Doctor was, ceasing its struggles and tilting its head questioningly in the direction of the sound. The creak turned into a groan and then into a grinding noise that made the Doctor's teeth vibrate. His hearts seized in his chest for what felt like to be the hundredth time that day. Was the Fortress finally arming the weapon that destroyed Acropolis? Had they all finally pushing too far and fully awakened the structure?

"No," the Doctor muttered out loud, frowning to himself and answering his own internal questions. "No, it's something else, the Weapon's above us, not below where the something else is…" As he finished explaining himself out loud — _a habit he never fully shook off in the absence of his companion, instead directing it to the Eyeless _— the lights flickered. "…And now the power is being diverted to the something else." The sound steadily got louder and louder making the Doctor's frown deepen and he pursed his lips.

"Well, that can't be right," he protested before turning back to the pinned glass man. "Hang on, would you? Just need to get at the comm." Freeing up on hand while making sure to adjust the position of his other in an attempt to compensate for the weakened hold, The Doctor dug around in his pocket before bringing the comm out and displaying it to the Eyeless. "The comm, see? _Comm see_, comme ça." The Doctor chuckled at his own wit before turning his attention to the screen. It clearly displayed their progress as they gradually rose closer and closer to the Weapon, only floors away. But as the sensation he was experiencing from the lift and as the noise below them growing louder revealed, not everything was as it appeared to be.

The Doctor's hearts sank just like what the lift was actually doing. "Oh," he murmured, deflated. "The comm's been lying to me." He glanced at the Eyeless. "Well, us, actually. I've been following the direction's the Fortress has been feeding me and you've been chasing me, so, really, we've both been tricked." The glass man remained impassive and the Time Lord couldn't tell how the Eyeless took his words of explanation. The grinding, sputtering, booming noise continued to increase in volume; it almost sounded as if the Fortress was cackling at them. The lift shuddered and quaked in response. "We should probably work together," the Doctor suggested. "If we want to survive, that is. It's the rational thing to do."

The Eyeless studied him closely for several long seconds before nodding its acceptance. The Doctor released it and shook the proffered hand given to him, sealing the agreement. Unfortunately, it was at that moment when the lift had reached its final destination, its doors opening and the metal box tipping over to forcibly eject the duo out.

They plummeted for nearly five meters before the Eyeless was dashed against a metal surface, emitting a sound like that of a crate of bottles after they fell out of that milkman's truck. The Eyeless lifelessly slid away, shattered by the impact, and the Doctor continued to plunge in the darkness for another meter before hitting a ledge himself. He wasn't shattered to bits but was sent rolling right over the edge to fall another five meters, his descent ending on his back after hitting solid rock.

"Ow," he stated.

A sound reminiscent of the Tower Bridge preparing to open radiated throughout the chamber: heavy gear grinding, bolts being pulled back, a deep groaning clack of metal against metal… The Doctor had a perfect vantage point of the source of the racket, flat on his back and utterly unable to move. Miraculously, nothing was broken in his fall, but he surely had numerous fractures and countless bruises to show for his trouble. Not to mention he was currently paralyzed, stunned from the fall. It was hard not to black out.

He was in a three-meter deep by ten-meter wide trench which was slightly curved. All above him, covering nearly every available surface, was a great mass of cogwheels that were interlocked with each other, spinning at different speeds that corresponded with their various sizes. There were drive shafts and pistons the size of redwood trees, house-sized flywheels, and drive belts big enough to drive an eighteen wheeler on. Partially obscured by the curve of the trench, about a hundred meters away, was a giant cylinder that was reminiscent of a wheel from a steam roller, ten by ten meters, fitting just so into the trench. The large mass of cogwheel, drive shafts, pistons, flywheels, and belts all interconnected with each other and, eventually, connected to the axle of said cylinder. It took the Doctor less than a second to work out exactly what it did.

There was a creak, and a clank, and then the sound of something being released. With a thunderous rumble, the cylinder began to roll towards him. "Seriously?" The Doctor complained. "This is really an inefficient and melodramatic method of killing a person, even if that person is me or Indiana Jones. I mean, I s'pose I'm flattered that you would put this much effort into planning my demise and all… And I've got to hand it to you, it does look like it'll work." The sound of the cylinder rolling toward him was deafening, the instrument to his untimely end appearing to rest at a minimum weight of a hundred tons, maybe more. Easily.

It seemed impossibly large as it loomed ever closer to his position, hydraulics hissing and steaming as it pressed forward, the sides of it scraping and sparks on the walls of the trench. It was like a juggernaut or the Energizer Bunny, would just keep going on and on without anything being able to stop it. The edge of the roller bushed the tips of his trainers. The Doctor forced his feet to move, but they only twitched. Using all of his concentration and willpower, he attempted to throw them over his head so he could flip himself upright. They only got halfway.

The Time Lord had just fallen ten meters only to land flat on his spine, he felt that he should be given some credit for being able to do that much and should be cut a break so if the Fortress could just stop for a moment and —

With a mighty hiss, steam blowing his trench coat hard enough to make it flap against his legs which were sticking straight up, the cylinder shuddered to a halt. Just in time too, the heels of his feet resting on the cool metal.

This time, the Doctor didn't make the same assumption that he had times before where he thought that he had been the one to bring about any change in his surroundings. As his body was bent at a right angle where he was flat on his back and looking up at the ceiling, the Time Lord was provided with a perfect view to see exactly why the cylinder had stopped when it did when he compared all the new positions of the gears, pistons, flywheels, cogs, and whatnot. The purpose of the cylinder hadn't been to kill him; this vast expanse of machinery hadn't been meant for him at all.

"You're kidding," the Doctor could only whisper hoarsely to himself as he came to the realization that the pyramid had turned completely on its base, the source of the very noise that had sounds like ice breaking to the Acropolitians outside. They had watched the action in stunned amazement as the Fortress completed rotating on its central axis, the structure locking in its new position with a triumphant and echoing slam. The side that had originally been buried inside the Factory was now pointed at the Eyeless ships, having torn itself free.

There was just one problem with diamond-reinforced type five space concrete, it was easy to resonate.

And while the Doctor had been impressive with his display earlier, he had weakened the ceiling more than it had been already. There was no way to be sure that it wouldn't have resonated enough on its own from the Factory, however, his use of the sonic earlier certainly didn't help. Glenda remembered his words just as the big window shattered and the floor beneath them bucked and groaned in protest as its integrity was compromised.

Someone dragged the albino to her feet and began to pull her away. Several tiny hands were gripping and pulling, leaving her little choice in where to go except to follow them or risk the lot of them getting killed. Sparks flew from all around her, the source being the production line machines, the last dregs of power being released after so long. Glenda stumbled, attempting to not trip over her own feet or her little guides who led the way to what they supposed to be safety. _If the Doctor fails_, she thought to herself hollowly, _there isn't anywhere that's safe to hide_.

The fighting — _or should she say 'slaughter'? _— continued above them. There was an explosion so vast that the shockwave nearly sent Glenda, her little helpers, and Dela flying to the ground. Windows shattered all around them, raining down glass like water from a storm. The debris cutting and hitting their heads heavily. There was a pause in the destruction of the city, filled only with the sound of death lasers being fired on both sides.

The peace didn't last long, unfortunately. There was the sound of something whizzing overhead followed by a horrible, nonsensical racket that Gilly couldn't describe if her life depended on it. Horrid crashes and booms, followed with shockwaves so strong that no one could keep their footing, all five of them being thrown to the ground. Something terribly and wickedly hot flew overhead back in the direction of the Fortress. Dela let out a choked cry before throwing herself on top of the children and Gilly. An explosion — _one that rivaled the one that had first caused the ex-mortician to become blind_ — made the ground tremble beneath them.

What Glenda had sensed was the last Eyeless ship being shot with enough force to send it hurtling into the heart of the city where it crashed into several tall building, making them collapse and topple over into each other like so many dominos. During this process, the little sun on the bottom of the ship had been ejected and sent flying back into the wall of the Fortress. There was nothing that the unsightly pyramid could do but brace itself as the sun tore through its walls like butter, ripping through its insides by destroying the gantries and pipes and defenses. Gradually slowing down from the hindrances on its trajectory flight to the heart of the structure where the weapon lay. It made a feeble splash against the central column, a small blob of lava against the mountain. It never penetrated the outer wall of the column, rapidly cooling against the outside of it.

Gilly's whole body either stung or tingled depending on its location, any place that a child rested against her fiercely protested. It only took her about ten seconds to realize that she was horrifically sunburned, all exposed skin being covered in tiny blisters. The ex-mortician felt weak and nauseous, not having the will to move as it seem like she would be sick if she even attempted to do so. She had never had sun poisoning this bad in her life. She would need water and medical attention as soon as possible. Assuming they all survived, that was.

She felt those around her begin standing now that the most obvious wave of death had passed. Dela was encouraging her to do the same, but Glenda declined. At the blonde's persistence and at the boys' pestering, she finally snapped, "I can't. I'm blind and have a severe case of heat stroke. If I tried to stand, I would likely fall back down and injure myself. Even if that didn't happen, I wouldn't be able to walk very far before I finally _did _collapse and none of you are in any shape to carry me. I would apologize that I'm not a character in a story where they somehow find the strength to continue on, but I'm not sorry for this weakness, I'm only human. If you were hoping for a hero or a noble supporting character, look elsewhere."

Dela hesitated, uncomfortable with the idea of leaving Gilly behind, but none of what the albino had said was a lie. It had been hard enough before, leading her around with the children guiding her. _If only Fladon hadn't been…_ She cut off that thought. It was bad luck to talk ill of the dead, and there was nothing that anyone could have done to prevent him from being crushed by the factory ceiling. And even if he was present, it would hardly be fair to expect him to carry Glenda's weight all the way back to the settlement, the albino resisting the whole while. The blonde was being left with very little choice, but the least she could do was make sure that Gilly wouldn't be left exposed out in the open.

Tugging the reluctant ex-mortician to a standing position, Dela urged, "Just trust me, it will be safer for you to be sitting over here while you wait." The thick cement monument stuck firmly in the side of the monoline wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon, thus was capable of providing the best possible shelter at the moment. The young American sighed in relief as she rested her cheek against the cool surface, the ample shade offering much needed reprieve from the sun on this planet's sky and anymore potential mini-suns from the Eyeless ships creating further problems for Glenda's highly-sensitive skin.

"Good luck getting back to the settlement," Gilly murmured absently. "Try to avoid the buildings, they might be unstable now." The Acropolitian nodded before realizing that the albino could see her, sheepishly making her agreement verbal. Assessing the ex-mortician almost sadly for another few seconds, hoping that she would change her mind, Dela came to understand that there was no going back from her. So she stood, silently ushered the children away, and the four of them left.

Gilly was alone.

* * *

The Doctor was in a bit of a pickle. Not of the preserved cucumber variety, obviously, but the sticky situation variety that might just lead to a sticky end if he didn't watch himself. Currently, he was cornered by a couple of missiles that had a fix on his biogenic material. Like a child playing tag, the Doctor was staying in the designated safe zones provided by the integral piping that the Fortress couldn't afford to be destroyed, forcing the missiles to circle like a pair of particular deadly and explosive buzzards. There were ten possible exits that he could have taken, had the missiles not been four times faster than he was. Oh, this was a puzzle if he ever saw one, which was more than a little irritating since he couldn't particularly spare the time for this.

"Stuff this for a game of soldiers," he grumbled, both out of patience and much needed time. Charging forward, he aimed his sonic straight at the one missile that was flying right for him. Placing it on the Maximum Disassemble setting, the Doctor crossed the fingers on his free hand and pressed the button, making the screwdriver squeal. A burst of sonic wavelengths rammed head on with the missile, causing it to act as if it had hit a solid wall, the entire weapon deconstructing and failing to pieces mid-air before plummeting to the ground useless and — _more importantly _— harmless.

However, just like how Gilly wasn't immune to the laws of physics when Alsa collided into her, so was the Doctor when the recoil of the sonic threw him backwards, head over teakettle. His body whinged that it was already tired, bruised, and scratched as it was without anything more being added onto that, _thanks_. As if to add insult to injury, there was still one more missile gunning straight towards him and his sonic needed, at the very least, four minutes to properly recharge for a second blast. A shame, really, as he had been so close…

He raised his arm to shield his head, bracing for impact from his spot on the ground. Morbidly, he couldn't bring himself to close his eyes or look away, instead watching the missile as it hurtled down upon him. The air shifted in front of him — _he had a passing thought that it might be some residual sonic waves from the blast earlier, unfortunately too small to be any use _— and a bald, toga-wearing ghost appeared, seemingly bemused to see the Doctor essentially cowering in front of it. The ghost didn't see it coming, the missile having hit the back of the ghost's head. Mutually destroyed, they disappeared in a large flash of light.

The Doctor grimaced, apologizing under his breath. While he was glad to still be alive, that didn't make him feel any better about how that came to be. Scrambling around on the ground, not willing to waste a second, the Time Lord dug through the remains of the first missile that he had disassembled, searching and finding a particular part that would become more than useful in the next few seconds if he could just manage to make the necessary adjustments without his screwdriver. He made to leg it to one of the ten doorways but was stopped by another ghost appearing…

And another.

And _another_.

Within an instant, there were more ghosts that he could count; a flood of flailing limbs, togas, and shinning translucent hair. He was surrounded. "Touch me and I die!" He shouted and the ghosts heard, swirling away until he was out of their reach, but continued to remain enclosed around him. There was no way for him to escape except through them, which wasn't an option. There were so many: tens, hundreds, thousands, millions… "I'm sorry," he told them, his hearts sinking. "I'm so sorry." Every few seconds, a ghost or a group of them would split from the main mob to confront him, seeking reassurance or an explanation or nothing at all, being merely filled with an endless emptiness. Five ghost children, a young couple, a teenager, more, but he told them all variations of the same thing, "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do."

Still, they eyed him balefully, seemingly incapable of understand or making any connection. It was just the emptiness inside their eyes, a void that contained only their helplessness and bitter loss. A feeling that resounded in the Doctor quite strongly, that sense of futility, that none of it should have happened, that it had all been some horrible mistake… A sense of longing for something that could never be recovered. "I wish I could," he beseeched them. "That I could do anything and save everyone… but I can't." It wasn't fair, none of this was fair!

Ha had to do something for them, had to try, but his sonic revealed nothing. "Not even a blip," he told them regretfully and with heavy self-loathing for being so useless in the face of their plight. "I don't have the answers, I'm sorry. I don't know what you are and I…" He choked on the words, a bitter anger welling up within himself —_ Useless. Helpless. Worthless. Too little, too late. And now everyone's gone. All your fault — _but he owed them, they had to know. "I can't help you. I'm sorry."

But even still, they crowded around him, edging ever closer and closer. They weren't listening to him. "I told you, there's nothing I can do. No point in mobbing me, and I can't stay. I need to stop the weapon before it's too late for the ones who are alive." But when he tried to move past him, the ghosts began to consciously block his way and become agitated. "I mean it, shift!" The Doctor was ignored, even as he warned them, "Touch me and I die. It won't even be as much as you lot have, just an endless nothingness, and then where would you be?"

His words went unheeded, for the ghosts didn't care for words, they were just hungry for what he had that they didn't. They wanted what he had. They wanted it more than anything and it was so unfair. None of them deserved the fate they received and who was he to stop them from retrieving what they were owed?

The Time Lord could sense the shift in mood just as a seasoned sailor could detect the shift in weather, and what he sensed he didn't care for at all. Like a switch had been flicked — _or, rather, a mask had been removed _— his demeanor changed from pained sympathy to resentful disdain. "You think you're so special? That your kind had received the worst fate to be had in this pitiless universe? Hardly! At least _some _of your people survived to blunder around the planet another day, at least you weren't the _last_," he spat.

The ghosts were angry now, but the Doctor couldn't possibly care less. They weren't as angry as he was, even with all of their wrath added together, it couldn't equate to his own. How could it? That fire burning deep within him, hot enough to make civilizations far greater than what Acropolis had once been at its peak burn to the ground. To being capable of causing such ruin to whole galaxies but abstaining purely by choice, his self-control being the only thing greater than his rage.

_Or so the Doctor liked to tell himself, as the only thing greater than his rage was his ability to lie, even to himself. And the only thing greater than that, was the depths of his fear and self-loathing._

"I'm the last one, my people completely eradicated, every last one of them. And with Time Lords, we don't just die once, oh no, it would take a lot more deaths than once to make it stick," he snarled, the Oncoming Storm completely taking over, eyes dark and dangerous, teeth bared with his hackles raised, a dangerous predator cornered and ready to strike. "And you know what's worse? _They_ survived. I should have been the last living remnant of the Time War, a war so vast and so devastating, it would make this seem like a petty squabble over a _jammy dodger_. But no, somehow, _they_ lived and my people's sacrifice was rendered _meaningless_. Life is always better than death, _always_, yet I want _them_ dead, every last one of them, _exterminated_. And I won't stop, I won't die, _not until _I _win!_" He lunged at the ghosts, brandishing his sonic screwdriver as if it was weapon meant to inflict harm. "**JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!**" He roared, the command echoing against the metal walls carrying above all other noises.

And they did, leaving him panting in an empty space where millions had once been and were now no more. Somehow, to the Doctor, this was worse than it would have been if they stayed. Despite succeeding in getting the ghosts to leave him in peace, or some sad mimicry of it, he felt as if he had lost something important in exchange.

* * *

Gilly sat in the shadow of the monorail and waited. Whether it was for the Doctor to make an appearance or the end of the world via devastation from the weapon remained to be seen, the outcome entirely hinging on who was faster, the Doctor or the Fortress. One blessing came from the knowledge that if it was the latter, her death would occur so suddenly, she wouldn't even realize. There one moment and gone the next. But if it was the former, she would be forced to remember all that she had seen that day and live with the memories for the rest of her existence. That would be the least she could do for Professor Jeffip, if nothing else.

God, it was like her sister all over again. She didn't even know him, but his murder made old wounds tear open once more. _They never found her body, just like they won't find his in all that rubble._ Gilly was a wreck and she knew it, a volcano ready to blow in an eruption. If she made it through this, she was going home. Forget about tricking the so-called Time Lord into letting her have another trip, Gilly wanted to return _home_, that being the Planet Earth in the Year 2049. As long as she was on that planet in that year, she could find her own way back. No more time traveling, no more Time Lords, and no more adventures that involved Indiana Jones movie sets. If this was how it usually was for the Doctor, Glenda Hopkins wanted no part of it.

If he had to checkup on her illness or ascertain for himself that she was still breathing, he could damn well make a house call.

Speaking of, she would need another pill soon. Perhaps had an hour or two left before the medication wore off. The ex-mortician didn't think that she would ever get used to death being only twenty-four hours away. Was this how individuals affected with diabetes felt: on a thin rope where their balance between life and death was decided by maintaining their blood sugar? Gilly counted herself lucky that she only needed that one pill a day to maintain homeostasis. If she could just —

The horrifically sunburned albino whipped her head towards the footsteps she just heard, ignoring how her neck complained from twisting the already abused skin. Pensively, she waited until the unknown presence came closer and announced, "I decided that I would wait with you, Glenda."

"Oh," Gilly breathed out in muted relief as Dela sat next to her. She was grateful for the company but surprised that the blonde would come back. It was an unexpected enough decision that it was almost suspicious. "But what about the children? Are you sure it was all right to leave them?"

Dela gave a quiet, bitter laugh, "You forget, they have lived in the ruins of Acropolis for longer than they have lived with their parents. As it is, they stand a better chance than I do in finding the settlement. Besides, I couldn't… I have to see for myself that he comes back… I have a feeling that he wouldn't return to the settlement otherwise."

Gilly couldn't contradict her, either. The Doctor did give the impression of being the kind of person who would want to slip away after completing whatever self-appointed task he gave himself. She briefly wondered if he would have left her behind too if she didn't wait for him here and went with the children earlier, if he would have forgotten about her, but disregarded it. If he went through the trouble of keeping her alive this long, obviously he wouldn't overlook her so easily.

However, even with the illness, Gilly wondered if going with that man back to his time machine — _even just to return home_ — would be more trouble than it was worth.

* * *

The Doctor stood in the weapon holding room that was in the center of the cement column that he had observed earlier, gazing upon the weapon before him. If Glenda was here, she would probably make a sarcastic comment or deadpan something along the lines of, 'we went through a literal death maze for a shiny metal staff. Fantastic.' And then he would have haughtily informed her that all the interesting bits were in the higher, lower, and sideways dimensions that she as a human wouldn't be able to sense, obviously. Superior Time Lord physiology and all that.

And what he did sense was nothing good, the exact opposite of the almost innocuous image that that meter long by ten centimeter wide nondescript cylinder provided. The energy crackled and hummed like a lightning bolt was contained inside, but it was black lightning, lightning so dark it would render sight impossible for anyone who looked straight at it. The power radiating from it was unmistakably powerful and dangerous, he should destroy it right now.

But his hand was stayed by the tiny suggestion that Alsa had planted earlier in the council: what if it could be used for the betterment of New Arcopolis? Have the energy be converted to something the Arcopolitans could use to help themselves. The thought tempted him, had festered in his mind ever since he had first heard it and given it the slightest consideration. A mistake, he knew, like the temptation set before Eve by the snake. It didn't help that Alsa had also suggested that they could harness the weapon for themselves should a repeat of what happened fifteen years ago occur again. Rather, it had just proved the point that the Doctor had been trying to make earlier, there were some things that just shouldn't exist or were simply just overkill. If protection was the many concern, using a weapon of mass destruction that obliterated everything living on the planet was counterintuitive and ultimately pointless when a more delicate option would have been more prudent. You didn't use a chainsaw to open a can of beans, after all.

Still, it gave him pause. There was the argument that anything could be made into the weapon if a wicked individual put enough thought into it. Medicine can poison, water can drown, sunshine can burn, and oxygen can suffocate… But the opposite was also true, any sword can be melted down into horseshoes and any spear beaten into a pruning hook. Sometimes, one merely had to take a step back and look at the problem differently. Not to mention, the Doctor alone had the knowledge to do such a thing to the weapon, to be able to convert it in such a way so that it would create and not destroy. Reverse the polarity or whatever.

Every instinct in him was screaming to destroy it.

Again, the question asked, 'was it possible to use the weapon for good?'

This time there was an answer, 'no one else possibly could, but you might be able to do something.' And with that, the Doctor reached the decision to not destroy the weapon.

Turning Alsa's bag that he had commandeered ages ago and had nearly forgotten about inside-out, the Doctor used it like an oven mitt and disconnected the cylinder from the wires that connected it to the Fortress. Said wires fizzed and sparked, having just enough power to give him tiny shocks as he brushed against them, reaching him through the fabric of the bag. And, like picking up a piece of dog poo, the Doctor turned the bag outside in, safely concealing the weapon inside without having directly touched it. The lights flickered, and everything went black, the power source having been removed.

* * *

**A/N: So, it's been awhile... Life has been pretty harsh in its dealings with me. Between a friend of a friend (who I only know about through vague mentions in conversations previous to the funeral) passing away and needing comforting to the aforementioned friend of mine disappearing without telling anyone for a couple of days for some alone time. Again, without saying anything. I believe I was entirely justified in being terribly worried sick and considering in reporting them missing since even the parents didn't know their whereabouts. Needless to say, I was extremely angry beyond all comprehension, especially considering the circumstances surrounding the disappearance when they finally deemed it time to reappear.**

**Then you add on the piles of other personal trials...**

**To be honest, the only really good thing that has occurred recently is my entering into a partnership with an Indie Horror Game designer. I fully expect this to be a worthwhile adventure in undertaking. Between helping out on their main RPG project 'Soulless' (the title is a WIP), I will have their guidance and expertise in creating a first-person POV horror game of my own, 'Zagreus'. I have high hopes for this venture and the next two-years should prove interesting, both in my writing on this site and in my game designing.**

**...**

**As a side note, the confrontation you've all been waiting for will be occurring in the next chapter. I decided on a compromise. I originally want to hold off on it, to let it develop and bottle up onto a major explosion that can be filled with all the feels and many reckless words/deeds, but based on the reviews and PMs I've received, people want it now or, at least, in the near future. So, there will be a confrontation in the next chapter that won't be resolved in any sense of the word, nor any reconciliation either. Feelings of bitterness, mistrust, and resentfulness will be festering within Glenda, but she will be somewhat resigned to her fate and will put up with it... Up until the original point where I was going to have the original fight. By that point, she'll be desperate and at her wit's end, all caution thrown to the wind.**

**And, if any of you are into that sort of thing, I have been working on an SI (self-insert) story by the name of 'Albedo Caelum' in the 'Katekyo Hitman Reborn!' universe as well as a collab semi-SI story with Sylwia Kiley called 'The Lotus and the Clover' in the 'Naruto' universe. I don't usually do advertisements, but I will be updating those more regularly, if you're interested.**

**Anyway, feel free to review to give me your thoughts. I would attempt bribery, but I really don't know what you would want from me... Maybe if we make it to a hundred reviews, I'll write something of your choosing in recognition of the benchmark, I suppose.**

**Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving for you American readers.**


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